All these days we have seen cyber criminals spreading file encrypting malware and then demanding a ransom ranging from $5k to $2 million. But here’s a new variant of ransomware that debuted on August 10, 2020 demanding millions of dollar as ransom.
Recently, a Toronto based company became a victim of the said ransomware and the ransomware developers reportedly demanded $2,000,000 as ransom or else the ransom demand will double (4,000,000) after the pay-by-date. To exert more pressure, the data stealing developers siphoned around 200 GB of data related to employees, finance and staff, payrolls details, and a business plan.
“If you need proof, we are ready to show you” says a statement made by DarkSide group and if the victim denied the payment, then they will keep the data for a minimum time frame of 6 months to release it to interested prospects on dark web on an occasional note.
The identity of the company is being held until the firm confirms it on an official note. But Cybersecurity Insiders has learnt that the company earns in billions and the data was stolen in the first week of Aug this year.
DarkSide claims that they are new to the ransomware market, but can prove devastating when compared to others if underestimated. The good is that the cyber criminal group is only interested in infiltrating corporate networks that can pay huge as their yearly profit margin is in millions as they do not want their victims go bankrupted and scale down in business.
The hacking group also claimed on its website that they are only interested in hacking organizations related to medicine, education, non-profits or the government.
