The hackers behind the weekend cyberattack on hundreds of companies and public organizations not only in the United States, are demanding $ 70 million (about 1.5 billion crowns). Referring to information on a blog that is usually used by the cyber gang REvil, Reuters reported.
According to news agencies, hackers probably Friday broke into a widely used tool from the American software supplier Kaseya, which is used by IT experts to manage servers, desktops, network devices, and printers. They then modified a tool called VSA and launched a wave of ransomware attacks on targets that used it. According to Reuters, hundreds of companies and public organizations have been affected in a dozen countries, but the extent is not yet fully known.
The cyberattack affected not only companies but also schools and travel agencies. The victim of the attack is probably also the retail chain Coop, which had to close about 500 stores in Sweden on Friday.
The REvil group is notorious for numerous hacker attacks and high ransom demands, and analysts say it has its roots in Russia. According to US investigators, the group was behind, among other things, the recent attack on the world’s largest meat producer JBS, which ultimately paid about 11 million dollars (237 million crowns) to hackers in order to protect customers.
US President Joe Biden announced over the weekend that he had commissioned the US secret services to investigate the incident. The hacker attack is also being investigated by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in cooperation with the cybersecurity agency CISA