Ragnar Locker Attack Targeted Camapri In $15K BTC Ransom

A hacker group used what is called the “Ragnar Locker” attack and targeted the Italian alcohol producer Campari where they demanded $15 million in a Bitcoin ransom so let’s find out more about it in the latest Bitcoin news.

The hacker group targeted Campari and demanded a Bitcoin ransom taking out Facebook ads to “pressure.” The hackers stole important documents, contracts, and banking info from the company and demanded $15 million in BTC for its release. When Campari didn’t respond, the gang made Facebook ads to promote its attack.

The Italian alcohol producer Campari was attacked last week with a ransomware attack when the hackers stole 2 terabytes worth of filed that belong to the company, demanding $15 million in Bitcoin for its release according to a report on Bleeping Computer. Termed “Ragnar Locker” the attack uses a computer virus that infects the popular Windows OS and collects sensitive data from the victim’s device. This data is encrypted later with the attackers demanding a ransom usually via email or a note in order to release the decryption key, the most common tool that allows victims to access the data again.

The attackers encrypted financial data, documents, important emails and agreements. The ransom note sent to the company read:

 “We have BREACHED your security perimeter and get (sic) access to every server of company’s Network in different countries across all your international offices.”

Campari, shut down its IT services and website to prevent further infection on November 1 once the breach was discovered. The statement said:

 “The company has implemented a temporary suspension of IT services, as some systems have been isolated in order to allow their sanitization and progressive restart in safety conditions for a timely restoration of ordinary operations.”

The attackers were not done yet. Earlier this week, the group was found buying ads on social media giant Facebook after Campari said in another statement that “some personal and business data was taken.” The attackers were having none of that as they said on the Facebook ad:

This is ridiculous and looks like a big fat lie. We can confirm that confidential data was stolen and we talking about a huge volume of data.”

According to the security researcher Brian Kebbs, the ads were shown to more than 7000 Facebook users as the attackers hacked into different FB’s user account for running the ads before the company security measures detected that it a “Fraudulent campaign.” The move was not unprecedented as the hackers turned to social media adverts and the press releases that they send out are trying to popularize their attacks in recent times with the intent to create a negative image of the victim to harm their businesses.