Tagged: ransom

February 9, 2026 @ 8:41 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The mysterious disappearance of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, mother of NBC’s Today show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, has taken a chilling turn with ransom demands for millions in Bitcoin. This case underscores a growing and disturbing trend: the increasing involvement of virtual currencies like Bitcoin in violent… Read More

June 15, 2021 @ 8:44 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

An infamous cyber extortionist is back and is looking for your unprotected assets. The warning comes from cybersecurity and application delivery solutions provider Radware. This week they published a cybersecurity alert warning that Fancy Lazarus, a distributed denial of service (DDoS) extortionist, has returned with… Read More

June 9, 2021 @ 3:35 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

No one should be shocked Bitcoin’s price fell after the United States recovered most of the cryptocurrency used to pay the Colonial Pipeline hackers, an analyst with GlobalData said this week. Given cryptocurrency’s libertarian roots, the fact a government could track and seize money designed… Read More

March 28, 2019 @ 1:32 am By Cali Haan  |  

Police used “digital technology” to trace and capture 6 men who kidnapped an IT professor in Pakistan March 19th, but officials reportedly fear that the case could trigger a “boost” in the prevalence of cryptocurrency-related ransom and terror-financing events in Pakistan. According to Pakistani media… Read More

March 1, 2019 @ 2:49 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Traditionally, cyber extortions have mainly been executed via exposure threats (“pay a cryptocurrency ransom or be embarrassed”), threats of cyberattack (denial of service), or the deployment of ransomware to lock up data, says “digital risk protection firm” Digital Shadows in its latest report, “Tale of Epic… Read More

February 22, 2019 @ 7:50 am By Cali Haan  |  

In January, a private heart clinic located in a Melbourne’s Cabrini hospital had 15 000 patients’ medical records locked in a ransomware attack that emanated from Russia or North Korea, 9News reports. A cryptocurrency ransom to unlock the data was subsequently demanded. The records were… Read More

February 13, 2019 @ 2:16 am By Cali Haan  |  

Unsecured databases hosted on the free and open-source cross-platform database MongoDB are still being attacked by hackers demanding Bitcoin ransoms, says Zero Day, albeit less effectively than before. Reports of hack exploitation of MongoDB data first surfaced in December 2016, “when hackers realized they could extort… Read More

January 22, 2019 @ 9:50 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Police in South Africa have arrested suspects believed to be behind the kidnapping of a 13-year-old boy from Witbank and the attempted kidnapping of a 13-year-old girl from Middelburg, Times Live reports. The boy was reportedly kidnapped “in broad daylight” close to his home on… Read More

January 14, 2019 @ 10:16 am By Cali Haan  |  

Police in Spain and Costa Rica have arrested 12 individuals they believe kidnapped an American businessperson in Costa Rica on September 24th, 2018, The Daily Mail reports. According to various Costa Rican media, William Sean Creighton, also known as ‘5 Dimes Tony,’ was running the ‘5 Dimes’… Read More

January 3, 2019 @ 10:39 am By Cali Haan  |  

People seeking information today about the Luas light rail system in Dublin may have encountered a message threatening to “publish all data and send emails to your users” unless a ransom of one Bitcoin (worth about $3850) is paid, RTE reports. That message has now… Read More

January 3, 2019 @ 6:55 am By Cali Haan  |  

“(E)ach time a Layer is opened, a new wave of liability will fall upon you,” says an extortion note from the prolific hacker ‘Dark Overlord,’ who now claims to possess sensitive records relating to the 9-11 stolen from prominent insurance and legal firms, Motherboard reports. The… Read More

September 30, 2018 @ 6:46 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Port of San Diego CEO Randa Coniglio announced this week that Port of San Diego computer systems suffered a “serious” ransomware attack on September 25th, with hackers demanding a ransom of Bitcoin to unlock affected systems. “The Port of San Diego has experienced a serious… Read More

September 12, 2018 @ 10:27 pm By Cali Haan  |  

A small town about 2 hours north of Toronto is being forced to pay bitcoins to have access to its computer systems restored by hackers, the Midland Newsroom reports. “In the early hours of Saturday, September 1, the Town of Midland became the victim of… Read More

August 10, 2018 @ 10:35 am By Cali Haan  |  

Hackers with poor spelling annoyed one of the world’s largest golf promoters this week by seizing some relatively benign files and demanding a bitcoin ransom for their return, Golfweek reports. On Tuesday, staff at the Professional Golfer’s Association of America  (PGA) tried to access computer… Read More