Cryptocurrency Firm Tether Refuses to Pay Ransom to Hackers

The cryptocurrency company Tether has refused to pay a ransom of 500 bitcoins ($24 million) after hackers threatened to leak sensitive data if the company failed to pay.

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In a tweet in regards to the hack, Tether stated the hackers’ risk may very well be an try and undermine the corporate or cryptocurrencies usually.

“Immediately we additionally obtained a ransom demand for 500 BTC to be despatched to bc1qa9f60pved3w3w0p7snpxlnh5t4uj95vxn797a7. The sender stated that, except they obtain the BTC by tomorrow, they’ll leak paperwork to the general public in an effort to hurt the bitcoin ecosystem. We aren’t paying,” the corporate tweeted.

Tether additionally warned its prospects of a marketing campaign that’s utilizing cast paperwork that purport to come back from its employees. The corporate, nonetheless, didn’t make clear if the marketing campaign utilizing malicious paperwork is related to any extortion effort.

PSA: Solid paperwork are circulating on-line purporting to be between @tether_to personnel and reps of Deltec Financial institution & Belief and others. The paperwork are bogus. 1/5

— Tether (@Tether_to) February 28, 2021

Tether didn’t instantly reply to Data Safety Media Group’s request for additional particulars on the hacking incident.

Paying Ransom

The FBI and safety consultants urge organizations hit by ransomware gangs to not pay ransoms as a result of there is no assure hackers will fulfill their guarantees and the funds spur further cybercrime.

“It is attainable that the attacker’s declare right here is true, however with none definitive proof, it’s simply as doubtless that it’s an try at market manipulation,” says Chris Clements, vice chairman of options structure at Cerberus Sentinel. “There isn’t a assure that the extortionist will delete the compromised info as an alternative of auctioning it off on the darkish net or just publicly releasing it free of charge.”

Erich Kron, safety consciousness advocate at KnowBe4, says hackers typically make the bogus threats of leaking knowledge so as to add authenticity to their declare. “Even when the risk is discovered to be pretend, the sufferer of the declare can have needed to spend cash and beneficial assets making an attempt to substantiate the validity of the info the attackers declare to have,” Kron says. “To guard towards actual ransomware, organizations have to give attention to knowledge loss prevention applied sciences, guarantee backups are examined and offline, and most significantly, keep away from the an infection within the first place by educating staff [about phishing].”

Surge in Ransomware

Ransomware assaults have considerably elevated as extra employees members have labored remotely through the COVID-19 pandemic.

A 2020 report by safety agency CyberEdge discovered that ransomware assaults have affected about 69% of corporations in North America through the pandemic. Some 55% of corporations in Asia, 61% in Latin America and the Center East and 57% in Europe have been hit by such assaults.

In February, Automated Funds Switch, a Seattle-based billing and cost processing supplier utilized by organizations and authorities companies throughout California and Washington, was hit by a ransomware group (see: ‘Cuba’ Ransomware Gang Hits Payment Processor, Steals Data).

In January, an extortion gang exploited an unpatched vulnerability in an growing old file switch system from California-based Accellion, affecting dozen of consumers (see: Accellion: How Attackers Stole Data and Ransomed Companies).