extortion
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Blog
FBI warns of Luna Moth extortion attacks targeting law firms
The FBI warned that an extortion gang known as the Silent Ransom Group has been targeting U.S. law firms over the last two years in callback phishing and social engineering attacks. Also known as Luna Moth, Chatty Spider, and UNC3753, this threat group has been active since 2022 and was also behind BazarCall campaigns that provided initial access to corporate…
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PowerSchool hacker pleads guilty to student data extortion scheme
A 19-year-old college student from Worcester, Massachusetts, has agreed to plead guilty to a massive cyberattack on PowerSchool that extorted millions of dollars in exchange for not leaking the personal data of millions of students and teachers. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Matthew D. Lane pleaded guilty to four federal charges of one count each of cyber extortion conspiracy, cyber…
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Luna Moth extortion hackers pose as IT help desks to breach US firms
The data-theft extortion group known as Luna Moth, aka Silent Ransom Group, has ramped up callback phishing campaigns in attacks on legal and financial institutions in the United States. According to EclecticIQ researcher Arda Büyükkaya, the ultimate goal of these attacks is data theft and extortion. Luna Moth, known internally as Silent Ransom Group, are threat actors who previously conducted…
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White House condemns Europe’s ‘extortion’ of Apple and Meta – Computerworld
Will the future be better tomorrow? In this kind of context, the idea that relationships may become worse before they get better isn’t just a problem waiting to happen. It appears to be a problem that’s already here. Like a squawking duck, this particular sequence of events certainly seems to be forming up to become exactly what it sounds like…
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Hunters International shifts from ransomware to pure data extortion
The Hunters International Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) operation is shutting down and rebranding with plans to switch to date theft and extortion-only attacks. As threat intelligence firm Group-IB revealed this week, the cybercrime group remained active despite announcing on November 17, 2024, that it was shutting down due to declining profitability and increased government scrutiny. Since then, Hunters International has launched a…
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Interbank confirms data breach following failed extortion, data leak
Interbank, one of Peru’s leading financial institutions, has confirmed a data breach after a threat actor who hacked into its systems leaked stolen data online. Previously known as the International Bank of Peru (Banco Internacional del Perú), the company provides financial services to over 2 million customers. “We have identified that some data of a group of clients has been…
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Why you should always be wary of insider threats: A disgruntled employee at a US industrial firm deleted backups and locked IT admins out of workstations in a failed data extortion attempt
A disgruntled IT worker at a national industrial company in the US has been arrested after he launched an extortion campaign targeting his former employer in 2023. Daniel Rhyne was a core infrastructure engineer at an unnamed US-based industrial firm, and attempted to extort his company for $750,000 worth of Bitcoin. According to a press release issued by the US…
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Everything you need to know about RansomHub, the new force in the digital extortion industry
Ransomware collective RansomHub has compromised hundreds of critical infrastructure organizations in the US since emerging in early 2024, prompting a new warning from law enforcement groups. The FBI, CISA, Department of Health and Human Services, as well as the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), issued a joint advisory providing businesses with guidance on the group’s tactics, techniques, and…
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Employee arrested for locking Windows admins out of 254 servers in extortion plot
A former core infrastructure engineer at an industrial company headquartered in Somerset County, New Jersey, was arrested after locking Windows admins out of 254 servers in a failed extortion plot targeting his employer. According to court documents, company employees received a ransom email titled “Your Network Has Been Penetrated” on November 25, around 4:44 PM EST. The email claimed that all IT…
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