HomeBlockchainSecurityRansomware demands $7.5 million in Monero (XMR)

Ransomware demands $7.5 million in Monero (XMR)

In the last few days, there has been an uproar over the news of a ransom demanded from an Argentinean telephone company targeted by criminals who, through ransomware, have requested as much as 7.5 million dollars in Monero (XMR).

As can be seen from the images, this is not only a ransom that is significant in terms of value, considering that it is more than 100 thousand Monero (XMR), but the hackers have also set a countdown, expiring today, which actually doubles the initial amount requested, so 15 million dollars, as much as 218 thousand Monero (XMR).

The behaviour of a ransomware of this kind is very sophisticated and allows to encrypt all the files and folders of the infected device.

Most of the time this threat is delivered through a simple e-mail message, which hides the virus.

In fact, once the data is encrypted, it is virtually impossible to recover it without the encryption key, and in fact, the ransom is necessary to obtain this key, although it is not necessarily provided upon payment.

Criminals hardly ever provide the key because once the victims have figured out how to decrypt the system, subsequent attacks would be useless.

In the case of this telephone company, about 18,000 devices were affected, because the employees opened an email with the incriminated file, “77os97-readme”, which triggered the disaster.

Unfortunately, in these cases it is difficult to intervene, especially in a short period of time, which could lead the company to pay the ransom, running the risk of receiving a key that does not work.

Unlike the attack that occurred against Twitter, in which bitcoin was used, in this case it was chosen to use a completely anonymous crypto that makes it virtually impossible to identify the criminals, something that had also been “suggested” to the Twitter hackers.

 

Alfredo de Candia
Alfredo de Candia
Android developer for over 8 years with a dozen of developed apps, Alfredo at age 21 has climbed Mount Fuji following the saying: "He who climbs Mount Fuji once in his life is a wise man, who climbs him twice is a Crazy". Among his app we find a Japanese database, a spam and virus database, the most complete database on Anime and Manga series birthdays and a shitcoin database. Sunday Miner, Alfredo has a passion for crypto and is a fan of EOS.
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