British Airways and BBC are being ransomed by Russian hackers
British Airways, Boots and the BBC are under attack by Russian cybercriminals from the Clop group. The Russian attackers issued an ultimatum demanding to begin ransom negotiations after stealing the data of about 100,000 employees of the companies.
This was reported by The Guardian
The Clop organization's demand commands the attacked companies to email their consent to negotiations by June 14. Otherwise, the hackers threaten to post the names, addresses, national insurance numbers, and bank details of their victims online. However, the message does not specify the exact amount of the ransom.
As part of its criminal intentions, Clop exploited a piece of business infrastructure called MOVEit, software used to securely transfer data around internal networks. The same vulnerability provided an entry point into multiple victims in a single mass hack.
The hacker group claims to have information on “hundreds” of companies. They also threaten to download data from other companies that use the MOVEit software solution.
“This is announcement to educate companies who use Progress MOVEit product that chance is that we download a lot of your data as part of exceptional exploit,” the hacker group's demand says.
However, Clop notes that their organization is not interested in any data stolen from state actors, saying that "they have no interest to expose such information."
According to Jake Moore, Global Cybersecurity Advisor for ESET, the hackers' approach deviates from the norm, as they first asked their victims to enter into negotiations by contacting them, rather than sending a ransom note with a predetermined amount of money.
He believes this is due to the "overwhelming magnitude of the ongoing hack," which is still affecting large numbers of systems worldwide.
Last month, a number of Lithuanian companies were attacked by Russian hackers. Avia Solutions Group (ASG) reported that its European offices were attacked on May 30, along with a number of Lithuanian government agencies.