ransom money | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

"Pay $20,000 worth of bitcoin, or a bomb will detonate in your building" A massive number of businesses, schools, government offices and individuals across the US, New Zealand and Canada on Thursday received bomb threats via emails that caused nationwide chaos, forcing widespread evacuations and police response. The bomb threat emails were apparently sent by spammers, threatening people that someone has planted bombs within their building that will be detonated unless a bitcoin payment of $20,000 is paid by the end of the business day. "I write to inform you that my man has carried the bomb (Tetryl) into the building where your business is located," one of the emails posted to social media read . "It was assembled according to my instructions. It can be hidden anywhere because of its small size, it cannot damage the supporting building structures, but there will be many victims in case of its explosion." "You must pay me by the end of the ...

The cyber criminals behind the global WannaCry ransomware attack that caused chaos worldwide have finally cashed out their ransom payments. Nearly three months ago, the WannaCry ransomware shut down hospitals, telecom providers, and many businesses worldwide, infecting hundreds of thousands of computers in more than 150 countries, encrypting files and then charging victims $300-$600 for the keys. WannaCry was really bad, as the nasty ransomware forced the British NHS (National Health Service) to shut down hospitals and doctor's surgeries, and infected a Spanish telecommunications company and Russian mobile operator, among much more. Even a month after the outbreak, the WannaCry ransomware was found infecting systems at Honda Motor Company , forcing the factory to shut down its production, and 55 speed and traffic light cameras in Victoria, Australia. Overall, the hackers behind WannaCry made $140,000 in Bitcoins from the victims who paid for the decryption keys—but for ...

Forget about Financial services and Online shopping websites, but at least we expect from Security Firms and Antivirus vendors to keep our personal and Sensitive data Encrypted and Secured. One of the most popular and much-respected Antivirus and computer security firms 'BitDefender' has recently been hacked and has had a portion of its customer data leaked. The Data Breach in BitDefender is incredibly embarrassing for the security firm, not because the company failed to prevent its customers data from hackers, but because the Security company failed to encrypt its customers' most sensitive data . Now, this is something really not expected from a reputed Security Firm. It appears that the hacker, who uses the online alias DetoxRansome , was able to break into a Bitdefender server that hosted the cloud-based management dashboards for its small and medium-sized business clients, and pilfer usernames and passwords belonged to them. They Forget to Encrypt C...

I had the honor of hosting the first episode of the Xposure Podcast live from Xposure Summit 2025. And I couldn't have asked for a better kickoff panel: three cybersecurity leaders who don't just talk security, they live it. Let me introduce them. Alex Delay , CISO at IDB Bank, knows what it means to defend a highly regulated environment. Ben Mead , Director of Cybersecurity at Avidity Biosciences, brings a forward-thinking security perspective that reflects the innovation behind Avidity's targeted RNA therapeutics. Last but not least, Michael Francess , Director of Cybersecurity Advanced Threat at Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, leads the charge in protecting the franchise. Each brought a unique vantage point to a common challenge: applying Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) to complex production environments. Gartner made waves in 2023 with a bold prediction: organizations that prioritize CTEM will be three times less likely to be breached by 2026. But here's the kicker -...

Ransomware , a t hreat to internet users that continues to grow in popularity with cyber criminals due to its success and monetary potential. This is nothing new and to be expected. I have noticed many discussions on underground hacking forums about " How to create Ransomware like Cryptolocker malware " or " Malware - hacking tool-kit with ransomware features ". Security intelligence provider,  IntelCrawler has discovered  a new ransomware variant called Locker that demands $150 (£92) to restore files that it has encrypted. Like Cryptolocker , this new ransomware is also nasty because infected users are in danger of losing their personal files forever. Locker mainly spreads by drive-by downloads from compromised websites, disguised itself as MP3 files and use system software vulnerabilities to infect the end user. Once it has infected a system, malware first checks the infected machine has an internet connection or not. Then it deletes any original files from t...