Never pay ransomware. Just write the data off. Learn how to take decent backups
this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2024
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It's bad business to not be honest and trustworthy. If a hacker group is known to always give back the data and not strike twice, they are obviously much more likely to get paid. No one's paying someone known for ripping off. We see this in company ransomwware all the time. They are friendly, helpful in explaining the breech, and professional. If they were the opposite, they'd be broke.
It's an interesting dynamic where the ransomware groups have to be reliable and professional for their business model to work.
It was the same with Pirates, if you get a bad Rep with your extortion business you're just making your own life harder down the line
The article says that they weren't paying to recover their only copy of data, but to prevent it from being leaked:
to prevent stolen data from being leaked
Backups (or more backups) wouldn't have helped.
Not ransomware but just ransom to data exfil by a vulnerable API. But paying is still a dumb idea.
I mean news like this is the best way to stop people paying, I hope every business that doesn't pay sends the hackers this article and says this is why
Are ransom attacks on the rise in recent months? Any sites that track these sort of things?
I’m also curious. A quick search came up with these. Not sure which one is most reliable/updated
Closest I can think of would be haveibeenpwned.
Anecdotally, the Seattle Public Library is currently recovering from a ransomware attack and still has major systems offline. Of all targets, a public library is a pretty major low.
Isn't the next step to take the same amount of money and offer it to any bounty hunter that brings back the heads of the hackers (with sufficient evidence to link the heads to the attack)?
Maybe I watch the wrong movies.
Wasn’t panda buy also recently targeted by a joint investigation from Nike and the Chinese government which led to the seizure of many warehouses for counterfeited items?