Hacking group Black Shadow has demanded to be paid almost $1m to keep the customer data it stole from Israeli insurance company Shirbit private.
The cyber criminals are blackmailing the firm for 50 bitcoin, which is worth roughly $950,000, Times of Israel reported.
Black Shadow warned that unless the ransom fee hadn’t been paid within 24 hours, then it would double to 100 bitcoin and then to 200 bitcoin after another 24 hours.
If Shirbit fails to pay after the third deadline, black Shadow said it would sell the information to interested parties.
The hackers have published perusal data about clients, such as driver licences, to prove that it has the information.
Shirbit has acknowledged the breach and said that a “team of experts” are investigating the attack.
The Capital Markets Authority and the Israel National Cyber Directorate have issued a joint statement confirming the attack, saying that private information about clients’ insurance has been compromised.
The attack is part of a growing wave of similar crimes that has swept across the globe since the start of the pandemic. Cyber criminals around the globe have increased their attacks and tried to leverage the health crisis. Consequently, the cost of security breaches has also gone up since the coronavirus outbreak.
Given the rise in hack attacks and many employers embracing working from home due to the coronavirus, it’s hardly surprising that the pandemic has pushed companies and governments to rethink their cybersecurity strategies.
Interestingly though, investment into the CyberTech space has dropped over the last year. In the first half of 2020, only $2.2bn were injected into the sector, a far cry from the the $4.7bn invested in 2019, according to FinTech Global’s research.
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