A Russian government affiliated ransomware spreading group has targeted the Indian Insurance Information Bureau (IIB) and encrypted the entire database and their demand is that they victim needs to pay $250,000 in bitcoins in exchange of a decryption key.
The IIB of India issued a statement that around 30 servers were compromised in the incident and the extend of damage is yet to be calculated.
Although, the gang’s name that spread the malware has been kept under wraps for reasons, un-confirmed sources state that the attack was launched by Killnet and the authorities are taking measures to neutralize the effect of the attack on the infrastructure to the core.
Second is the news about a UK man who deliberately attempted to infiltrate the servers of his own employer and tried to gain the ransom payment that was in-turn intended to be sent to the hackers who encrypted the database.
As per the press release issued by the South East Regional Organized Crime Unit (SEROCU) the man named Ashley Liles was working as an IT security analyst in an oxford-based firm. The man who has now been convicted was assigned the duty to investigate a ransomware attack on the company servers.
Instead, Liles took the opportunity to work in his favor as he launched another attack on the servers to manipulate the encrypted servers and alter the wallet address to which the ransom payment needs to be sent.
As the owner of the company wasn’t interested in investigating the incident, he ordered for an inquiry by a third party and it was in that probe that the activity of Liles and his home IP ad-dress were found as evidence to frame him on the act.
The decision to imprison him was postponed to the month of July as the court needed substan-tial evidence to punish him with up to 7 years of imprisonment and a penalty.
Third is the news conformation issued by television giant Dish and the statement affirms that the hackers stole information of more than 300,000 employees in a ransomware attack that took place in February this year.
The satellite TV service provider added in its statement that no customer info was stolen in the incident and the only concern is that the hackers stole info related to employees and their fami-lies.
LockBit ransomware is suspected to be behind the incident.
Last is the news seems to be very important to those who are in a hunt for news headlines relat-ed to Russian malware. A coordinated program launched by FBI and CSI has led to the eradica-tion of a Russian spying tool named Medusa that could prove as a sign to the downfall of snake malware developed by Russian intelligence FSB.
According to the analysis of a senior FBI official the malware, a part of Turla hacking group was being used to conduct espionage and lock down databases with encryption; so far having a history of targeting NATO databases, top government agencies and tech companies in North America.
