The largest telecommunications company in Argentina, Telecom, suffered a hack where hackers managed to kidnap sensitive company data, so they are now requesting a ransom in Monero of $7,5 million.
Several local media outlets reported that recently the largest Argentine telecommunications company, Telecom, is being the victim of an attack in which a group of hackers managed to take control of the corporate network, hijacking data and files stored in Office365 and OneDrive in addition to several internal services. It was also revealed that the hackers set a deadline for the company to pay the reward and recover access to its data; The deadline is July 21. Likewise, the hackers request a reward for an amount of no less than 7,5 million dollars, which Telecom must transfer to them in cryptocurrency. Monero (XMR).
This is an attack ransomware in which several internal company systems and applications are being affected, such as the corporate VPN, Citrix, Siebel, Genesys, Customer, Field Service and PCs of internal and corporate users, although sources claim that customer accounts and services external sources are not being affected by the attack so far.
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Telecom internal support reports the attack
Labeled as a “massive incident,” Telecom employees reported the attack through a message in which they tell their customers the problems that the company's internal services are experiencing.
On the other hand, among the hackers' demands to return access to the hijacked data and services, are those of receiving payment of the requested reward before July 21, also pointing out that if the company does not make the payment by the date limit, the requested reward will be doubled to 15 million dollars. Likewise, hackers are requesting the ransom in Monero (XMR), as this is a cryptocurrency focused on privacy that makes it significantly difficult to trace transactions.
As a curious fact, it is important to note that the hackers who perpetrated the recent attack on Twitter, where a total of 45 important accounts were hacked to promote a scam, the hackers left a hidden message in one of the Transactions indicating that Monero was better for this type of misdeeds instead of Bitcoin, of course because the leading cryptocurrency (BTC) has a public and transparent blockchain, therefore all its transactions are traceable.
How did the ransomware attack start?
It is presumed that the ransomware attack of which Telecom is a victim began with a file downloaded in an email, so the company issued a brief statement letting them know several recommendations to its customers and the effort that the team is making to contain and minimize the attack.
Source: Telecom
For its part, the Telecom hack seems to be in the hands of the group Sondinokibi, a group that was responsible for the attack on a law firm that represents businessmen, celebrities and artists such as Elton John, Madonna, Mike Tyson and Lady Gaga in May of this year.
Continue reading: The Twitter hack continues. What is known about this attack?