A ransomware gang claims to have hacked the conservative media outlet the Washington Times and is threatening to auction off its data.
The group, a cybercrime gang known as Rhysida, announced in a post Tuesday to its site on the dark web that it would make the information available to the highest bidder in one week.
“With just 7 days on the clock, seize the opportunity to bid on exclusive, unique, and impressive data,” the group wrote. “Open your wallets and be ready to buy exclusive data. We sell only to one hand, no reselling, you will be the only owner!”
The group lists the price for the data at 5 Bitcoin, currently worth approximately $295,198.50.
While the group does not detail what the data supposedly includes, a screenshot accompanying the post shows what appear to be scans of numerous documents, including a Texas driver’s license and Social Security card.
In a statement to the Daily Dot, cybersecurity analyst Dominic Alvier said that based on the screenshot, it did not look as if the hackers obtained any critical data beyond what could be personal information linked to an employee.
It also remains unclear whether the hacking group entered into negotiations with the outlet.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the Washington Times does not appear to have publicly commented on the purported hack.
An advisory from the U.S. government last year notes that Rhysida, which leases out its ransomware to cyber criminals through a subscription-based model known as Ransomware as a Service (RaaS), targeted “the education, healthcare, manufacturing, information technology, and government sectors since May 2023.”
The group made headlines earlier this month after hacking a Florida county law enforcement agency and threatening to leak data including scans of driver’s licenses as well as fingerprints.
Rafe Pilling, the director of threat research at cybersecurity firm Secureworks, previously stated that while the identity of those in Rhysida remains unknown, the group displays patterns of behavior often seen from cybercriminals in Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.
So the government expects us to believe they have no idea where these hackers are with all of the tracking ability the government has and they don’t know where to find them come on now if the government really cared about their citizens they would have found them by know and could have stopped them dead in their tracks wouldn’t take but one agent to put an end to this sort of terrorism
They are not the only hackers in the world. You can easily pay off other hackers to find them and then hack them. Best thing is turning them on each other in some form or another. They might excel at hacking, but they lack in other areas of life.
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Time to stop reading. In the illegal cyber-world, this amount doesn’t equal $5 in someone’s pocket. It surely didn’t impress me. My take? These are tech-savy school kids (or a bit older) using Rhysida’s reputation to extort an infinitesimally small amount of money. The amount seems to be great to them, though. Hence, school kids.