Popular UK Company Pays $2.3M in Bitcoin To Ransomware Hackers

Ransomware attacks are certainly not something new, but it appears that hackers are getting more and more challenging to deal with. In fact, a well-known UK-based company paid millions in BTC in an attempt to protect its information after suffering an attack of the kind.

$2.3M In Bitcoin Paid For Ransom

Travelex, a London-based company, has reportedly paid nearly $2.3M in Bitcoin to hackers this January. According to The Wall Street Journal, the UK firm has suffered a network malware infiltration by the cybercriminals in the new year’s eve of 2020 with a ransom claim.

Travelex is known for being one of the world’s leading exchange companies, offering foreign-exchange kiosks at airports and various tourist sites around the globe. It confirmed the attack to the media briefly after it happened, but did not refer to the ransom of the almost $2.3M BTC after they’ve had their systems off the grid for a few weeks.

The so-called Sodinokibi (aka REvil) is a malware system attack. Several other companies, including CDH Investments, were targetted by it this year. It infiltrates organizational databases, after which the attackers offer the stolen information to the public, in case a ransom is not paid.

Ransomware: A Growing Threat To Healthcare As Well

As COVID-19 ravages the world and its economy, everyone’s standing on pins and needles. The software specialists grow even more serious about such threats. According to officials, hackers have more opportunities to enter and harm online process now, as more people are staying and working from their homes.

Microsoft is on the watch, giving a heads-up to institutions, who might suffer the same danger. According to the tech mogul, healthcare institutions are particularly threatened.

The company’s protection intelligence team emphasized on this to assist and protect from the possible ransomware attacks. The idea is to detect future threats of that kind on time and act against them.

“Through Microsoft’s vast network of threat intelligence sources, we identified several dozens of hospitals with vulnerable gateway and VPN appliances in their infrastructure. To help these hospitals, many already inundated with patients, we sent out a first-of-its-kind targeted notification with important information about the vulnerabilities, how attackers can take advantage of them, and a strong recommendation to apply security updates that will protect them from exploits of these particular vulnerabilities and others.”, says a notice from the software company.

To strengthen and ensure that companies and organizations understand the human-operated malware danger, Microsoft has published a comprehensive report which includes the steps and how-tos, so that they could keep their network safe and protected against such cyberattacks.