According to recent reports, it appears that the European Investment Bank (EIB) has fallen victim to a cyber attack orchestrated by the Russian hacking group known as Killnet. These hackers, who have been planning the digital assault since May, aim to cripple the Western financial system by the end of this month. Speculation suggests that this attack could be in retaliation to the assistance provided by several countries, including the UK and the USA, to Ukraine in its conflicts with the Kremlin.
Killnet is notorious for launching distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, which overwhelm a website hosting server with a flood of web traffic, rendering it unable to process legitimate requests. As a result of the attack on EIB, the institution’s network system collapsed, causing a significant disruption to its balance sheet, with over €550 billion impacted.
In a separate incident, the BlackCat Ransomware gang, also known as ALPHV, targeted the popular technology-based social media platform, Reddit. The criminal group has claimed to possess approximately 80GB of compressed data, including sensitive information such as current and former employee data, critical details of advertisers, contracts, internal information, and website codes.
It has been reported that the BlackCat Ransomware gang is demanding a ransom of $4.5 million to decrypt Reddit’s compromised database. Additionally, they have demanded a reduction in the price of the Application Programming Interface (API), as many users have expressed their dissatisfaction with the current pricing structure.
Further investigation reveals that the BlackCat Ransomware gang gained access to Reddit’s network through a sophisticated phishing campaign. One of the company’s employees fell victim to this attack, highlighting the need for heightened cybersecurity measures and employee awareness.
As the threat of cyber attacks continues to grow, it is crucial for organizations to remain vigilant and invest in robust security protocols to protect their valuable data from malicious actors.
