Ransomware Threats to Publish Data of Victims who Didn't Pay the Ransom

[Tomcat]

Maze ransomware operators have created a website listing the latest victim companies that have chosen to restore their computer systems on their own without paying the ransom.

“The companies represented here do not want to cooperate with us and are trying to hide our successful attack on their resources. Wait for their databases and personal documents here. Follow the news! ”- the ransomware website says.

According to journalist Brian Krebs, at least one of the companies listed on the site has indeed recently been hit by a Maze attack that has yet to be reported in the media. Criminals have already released data on the victims of Maze, including information on the date of the first infection, stolen Microsoft Office documents, text and PDF files and information on the total volume of files allegedly stolen from victims (in gigabytes), as well as IP addresses and names of infected servers ...

Ransomware operators have threatened victims to publish stolen data online for years, but they never actually carried out their threats. The situation seems to have changed after the operators of Maze published 700 MB of data from the information security company Allied Universal on the darknet, which refused to pay the ransom.

It is noteworthy that most recently Microsoft recommended refrain from paying the ransom, because in most cases it is too expensive, dangerous and only encourages the ransomware to continue their activities. In addition, the company claims that the decryption key received from the ransomware does not guarantee that the data will be recovered. As measures to protect against ransomware, the tech giant advises users to use effective email filtering solutions, regularly patch vulnerabilities in hardware and software systems, use modern antivirus software, separate administrative and privileged credentials from regular user accounts, and implement a whitelisting practice. applications and regularly back up critical systems and files.