The hackers of ransomware REvil have tried to blackmail a law firm based in New York. Among other things, they threaten the publication of data from clients, including numerous celebrities. The ransom note is currently 42 million dollars.
The cybercriminals published a message in May to the portal on the Dark Web, announcing the publication of files. Previously, they had apparently managed to infect the firm’s systems with REvil ransomware. They stole the files before encrypting the files on the network.
Screenshots, which should show folders in the network of lawyers, provide information about the names of clients. According to this, customers of GSMS include many celebrities. The firm confirmed the incident and also the attempted extortion. The hackers initially claimed 21 million dollars. Since the lawyers passed the seven day deadline or offered only 365,000 in ransom, they doubled their claim to 42 million dollars.
In addition, the REvil hackers carried out their threat and published an archive with 2.4 GB of data. It contains legal documents such as contracts for concerts and TV appearances. To back up their demand, the hackers are now threatening another with the publication of files that should contain information about the US President Donald Trump. An election campaign is underway and they have found a ton of dirty secrets to go with it. The deadline is one week, says the new message.
Large Amounts Of Data Stolen
In total, the hackers are said to have captured 750 gigabytes of sensitive data. These include confidential documents such as contracts and emails from clients. In addition, the company backups are said to have been deleted or encrypted by the extortionists. Lawyers are said to refuse to negotiate with the extortionists, because they believe that the documents will be published anyway.
Statement From The Firm
Sharing the clients documents is a despicable and illegal attack by these foreign cyber terrorists who make a living trying to blackmail high profile companies, entertainers, politicians and others.
The US Department of Defense and numerous state and local governments have previously been victims of similar cybercriminal attacks. They have been informed by the experts and the FBI that negotiating with terrorists or paying ransom to terrorists is a violation of federal criminal law. Even if enormous ransoms have been paid, the criminals often leak the documents anyway.
