There always be scams around the world these days. In the world of cryptocurrency, there were a few exemptions were despite technology and decentralization, people are taking advantage of various individuals and firms.
Take for example one recent case from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), who were victimized when they shell out $1.14 million to get access to files which was encoded by ransomware. Unfortunately, the decision to purchase was forced by the spread of the virus within their network systems.
An anonymous source revealed conversations of two parties that a criminal group known as Netwalking extorted more than $1 million in Bitcoin from the said academic institution last June.
he attack sent their IT to a blank black page that resembles a customer service landing page. After the malware fan out within their computer systems, the culprits sent to chat with UCSF and direct them to give a ‘crypto ransom’ or money paid thru cryptocurrency worth $3 million to retrieve the ‘stolen’ data.
Threats if not paid, the files will be totally wiped out, according to the hackers.
The University bargained for $780,000 but the criminals’ argue of the institutions earning were none compared to the billions getting per year. This made the hackers raise the amount to $1.5 million crypto asking.
After several discussions, the University and the hackers settled to ransom money of $1.1million. The next day, the money was transferred via bitcoin.
In a statement, UCFS was able to disclose their decision to make the payment since all the information being held up was essential to academic purposes as part of their mission in serving the public good.
Ransoms become rampant even at the age of blockchain tech. An expert like Jan Op Gen Orth, however that even if really an attack against privacy, he encouraged the victims not to pay a ransom as these vile individuals were fueled to sustain their illegal operation.
Stolen funds which was transferred via Bitcoin, in its digital assets nature of untraceable, were almost impossible to track once sent.
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