ransom
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CD Projekt Red says it was hacked but won't pay the ransom
CD Projekt Red tweeted that it has been hacked and must pay a ransom or code from games like Cyberpunk 2077 and an “unreleased version of Witcher 3” will be revealed.
Florida city gives in to $600,000 bitcoin ransomware demand
Riviera Beach, a city in Florida, is set to pay hackers $600,000 in bitcoin with the hope of having its systems restored. Hackers took over the systems several weeks ago, when a police department employee opened a malicious email that allowed them to inject the city's network with malware. Now the council has voted to pay the ransom in the hopes of getting Riviera Beach's encrypted records back -- even though there's no actual guarantee the hackers will restore them.
A ransomware attack is holding Baltimore's networks hostage
A ransomware attack brought Baltimore city government's computers to a halt yesterday. The hackers are reportedly holding the city's files hostage, demanding up to 13 Bitcoins (about $76,280) to free the city's systems. As of this afternoon, the city has quarantined the ransomware, the Baltimore Sun reports. But, in a press conference, the city said it is not sure when all of the systems will be functioning again.
Hackers claim to have insurance data linked to 9/11 attacks
The hackers who stole Orange is the New Black are back, and they've hit a new low. The group known as TheDarkOverlord claims to have stolen 18,000 documents from Hiscox Syndicates, Lloyds of London and Silverstein Properties, and threatened to release files providing "answers" for 9/11 attack "conspiracies" unless it received a ransom. A Hiscox spokesperson confirmed the hack to Motherboard and indicated that this was likely insurance data tied to litigation involving the terrorist campaign.
Atlanta spends more than $2 million to recover from ransomware attack
Last month, Atlanta's city government was hit with a ransomware attack that caused courthouse documents and services like payment processing to become inaccessible. The ransom demand was approximately $51,000 but according to the city's Department of Procurement, Atlanta has spent much more than that on efforts to rectify the situation. It appears that firms Secureworks and Ernst & Young were paid $650,000 and $600,000, respectively, for emergency services while Edelman was paid $50,000 for crisis communication services. Overall, the funds seemingly applied to the ransomware attack response add up to approximately $2.7 million.
Disney CEO Bob Iger now says the company wasn't hacked
A couple of weeks ago, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that Disney CEO Bob Iger had emailed employees about a ransom demand. Rumors indicated that hackers claimed to have a copy of an upcoming movie, possibly Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, but now the exec tells Yahoo Finance that "We don't believe that it was real and nothing has happened." The threat was probably taken more seriously in light of a hacker releasing Orange is the New Black episodes, but as of tonight, the only people threatening the world with another Pirates flick are the folks at Disney.
Disney faces ransom threat over one of its upcoming movies
It appears that the latest studio to deal with an attack by criminals is Disney. The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline have heard that CEO Bob Iger told Disney employees that a group of hackers claim to have access to a copy of one of its upcoming movies, and are trying to charge a ransom in exchange for not releasing it to the public. Speculation points to high-profile flicks like Cars 3, while Deadline reports that it's the next Pirates of the Caribbean.
Hackers stole a copy of 'Orange is the New Black' season five (updated)
The next season of Orange is the New Black isn't supposed to premiere until June 9th, but the first episode has already leaked. That's because a hacker or group of hackers going by the name 'TheDarkOverlord stole the content from a third party, and they're demanding Netflix pay a ransom in order to keep the rest of the season private. Late Friday night, TheDarkOverlord tweeted about content belonging to ABC, FOX, IFC and National Geographic, saying "We're not playing any games anymore."
Hackers try to extort Apple by threatening to wipe iPhones
Someone claiming to be a group of hackers called themselves the "Turkish Crime Family" has apparently been trying to extort money from Apple. As Motherboard reported a few days ago, the group claims to have login details for hundreds of millions of Apple accounts and is threatening to remotely wipe devices via iCloud unless it's paid $75,000 in Bitcoin or $100,000 in iTunes gift cards. Today, ZDNet says that it was able to verify 54 accounts revealed by the hackers, although it's still unclear how many other accounts they have or how they came by them. In a statement, Apple said its systems have not been breached, and the alleged list appears to have been obtained from other sources. It also says it's "actively monitoring" to prevent unauthorized access and is working with law enforcement.
Hacker claims to have 655,000 health care records for sale
Hackers are getting all too creative in their bids to hold health care data for ransom. An intruder is selling records for 655,000 patients from three US health care organizations (in Atlanta, the central US and Farmington, Missouri) on the Dark Web as part of a ransom attempt. Details of what happened aren't clear, but the hacker claims to have exploited flaws in the Remote Desktop Protocol to perpetrate the heists. Also, this person maintains to DeepDotWeb that the companies had a chance to "make it go away" for a "small fee," but didn't -- the sale is upping the ante.
Hospital paid hackers 40 bitcoins to get its network back
After more than a week of computer problems for Hollywood Presbyterian Memorial Medical Center, President & CEO Allen Stefanek announced (PDF) that it has decided to pay 40 bitcoins, or about $17,000 to fix the issue. The hospital's network was struck by ransomware on February 5th, and Stefanek's letter explained that the one his organization got hit by encrypted files and demanded money for an encryption key. Previous reports put the pricetag for access at $3.6 million, but the executive claims that is false, and the hospital chose the "quickest and most efficient way to restore our systems and administrative functions."
Hackers hold Hollywood hospital's systems for ransom
A Hollywood hospital is having to rely on pencil and paper after a ransomware attack. For more than a week, the computer systems at Hollywood Presbyterian Memorial Medical Center have been down at the hands of hackers. In addition to having to keep registration and logs on paper, staff is without email access and unable to use some patient records. Patients have been transported to other facilities as the computers needed to complete lab work, pharmacy tasks and CT scans are all unavailable.
Malware swipes 225,000 Apple accounts through jailbroken iPhones
Jailbreaking an iPhone gives you the freedom to run the apps and interfaces you want (rather than those allowed by Apple), but it also carries some inherent risks -- you're giving apps much more control over your phone. And unfortunately, some of these users are discovering this the hard way. Researchers have discovered a strain of iOS malware, nicknamed KeyRaider, that has stolen over 225,000 Apple IDs from jailbroken devices. The software takes advantage of Chinese app repositories that let people directly upload and share their own titles. If you happen to download the code, it'll either scoop up your Apple account data (to give rogue users "free" apps) or hold your phone for ransom.
Two Asian bank websites held ransom for bitcoin
One of the problems with virtual currency is that when it's robbed from a bank, it's going to take an awful lot of work to make it look exciting in a movie. So I feel for future filmmakers who have to dramatize something like the recent Chinese cyber heists where the culprits demanded bitcoins from the Bank of China and Bank of East Asia in exchange for not launching attacks on their websites. Regional publication The Standard reports that the each of the financial institutions' websites were hacked last Saturday, with emails sent stating that to avoid another distributed denial of service attack, bitcoin payments would be necessary. Authorities say that the intrusions came from multiple countries and that no bank or customer data had been affected. Eat your heart out, Michael Mann. Oh, wait.
Hackers tried to hold a Detroit city database hostage
Online criminals aren't just trying to extract ransoms from unsuspecting individuals; they're targeting whole cities, too. Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan has revealed that hackers tried to hold a city database hostage in April, demanding 2,000 Bitcoins (currently worth about $803,500) before they handed it back. Thankfully, the emphasis is on "tried." As Duggan explains, Detroit wasn't even using that database any more -- it simply ignored the ransom request.
Australian Apple users held to ransom by Find My iPhone hacker (updated)
Some Australian Apple device owners today woke up not to the sound of their alarm, but the jingle of a "ransom" notification instead. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that a hacker (or a group of hackers) going by the name "Oleg Pliss" systematically froze iPhone, iPad and Mac users out of their own devices, holding them hostage until payments of between $50 and $100 were received. Threads on Apple's official support forums detail how the attacker (or attackers) used Apple's own Find My iPhone feature to remotely lock devices and send messages requiring payment via PayPal. Fortunately, those who had set passcodes were able to regain access, because you can't add or change a lock on a device that already has one in place, but those without the security measure weren't so lucky.
Man ransoming unreleased Resident Evil GBC prototype ROMs to the Internet
Two prototype versions of the Game Boy Color port of Resident Evil are waiting in the wings for an imminent release; news that strikes us as rather serendipitous considering that we were just talking about that game last week. Like all great news, however, there's a bit of a catch.We're not talking about something awesome and legit, like an official 3DS eShop release, we're talking about ROMs. What's more, the ROMs for these two prototype cartridges, one containing most of Jill's campaign and the other containing an earlier build, will only be released to the internet if the anonymous seller's "fundraiser" reaches its $2,000 goal by the end of February.Now, that sounds more like extortion than a fundraiser, but the third party running the sale maintains that the benefactor in question is actually taking a substantial loss at that price point. That sounded reasonable at first, but the more we think about it, the less we buy it.It's true that some rare games can sell for tens of thousands of dollars, but those games tend to exist in extremely limited quantities and also tend to be remarkably verifiable; Stadium Events for the NES and the European version of Kizuna Encounter for the Neo Geo immediately spring to mind. Those are actual games, though, and not ROMs. Unless this collector destroys these cartridges after the ROMs are posted, the $2,000 entry fee is nothing but pure profit, since the cartridges can still be sold afterwards. Don't get us wrong, we love the idea of preserving the gaming industry's wackier moments. What we don't love is the idea of someone coercing a substantial amount of money from a dedicated fan base by ransoming the distribution of a product that they have no right to distribute. To paraphrase a brilliant professor of archeology, "They belong in a museum!"
Another blow in the keylogging experience
Thank you all for the encouragement I received in response to my recent keylogging experience. As a whole the experience was just dreadful. As I mentioned on last week's WoW Insider Show podcast, I am still afraid every time I log in that I will get the "The information you have entered is not valid" error. For the most part things have settled down, but the fear remains. The worst part of the keylogging episode was that my Shaman was transferred from a PvP to PvE server. After about a week in limbo my beloved Tauren was returned to her proper place. I was extremely relieved. Unfortunately that's the only thing on my account that Blizzard was kind enough to restore. They refused to return any of my gear or gold and did nothing about the items ninjaed from the guild bank. I appealed their decision with several emails. Those appeals were ubiquitously denied despite logical arguments and heart-filled plights. I thought it was all over, for better or for worse. I got more bad news in my email box the other day:
Crook demands $185k in ransom for stolen cellphone
If a burglar with exquisite taste somehow managed to snag a million dollar Goldvish, asking for just $185,000 for its safe return wouldn't be too far-fetched. Apparently, the mobile in question wasn't of the princely variety, as this particular thief managed to lower his asking price to a rock-bottom $200. The suspect, known initially through police paperwork as "Baby Boy," was lured into a trap after police tagged along for the exchange and arrested him at gunpoint. When Mr. Boy (later found to be Randy-Jay Adolphos Jones, which is only slightly better) was questioned, he just couldn't put a finger on why he blurted out the $185k figure versus something more reasonable, but hey, not everyone can be right on top of current market conditions, right?[Via The Raw Feed]
Virtually Overlooked: River City Ransom EX
Welcome to our weekly feature, Virtually Overlooked, wherein we talk about games that aren't on the Virtual Console yet, but should be. Call it a retro-speculative.Talking about the execrable Renegade last week put us in a Technos kind of mood. It's not really fair to Technos or to you to focus only on their one terrible NES game. Let's cleanse our palates together with a good Kunio game. River City Ransom EX is a Game Boy Advance remake of the NES River City Ransom, which is significantly improved in almost every respect-- except boxart, unfortunately.
