newslogical.com
A local government digital news outlet in Argentina recently revealed the worst bitcoin ransomware attack which targeted a data center that hosts local government files.
Hungry Bitcoin hackers reportedly managed to attack the data center on November 25 and as per the country’s Minister of Science and Technology, Alicia Bañuelos, the center had fortunately recovered 90 percent of the encrypted data. It was presumably the worst attack in history since around 7700 GB government data was originally at the risk. Bañuelos during the interview states that;
“Decrypting the files will take at least 15 days, mainly because of the size of the archive,”
This being said, hackers demanded Bitcoin in ransom. Although the size of ransom remained undisclosed, it may range from $37000 to $370000 which hackers demanded to decrypt the files. This attack isn’t certainly the first in history, instead, there are several such cases, resulting in the loss of crucial data if victims failed to make expected ransom in Bitcoin or crypto in general.
As a matter of fact, policymakers and regulators are widely weighing such vulnerable activities when it comes to regulating the crypto market. In fact, many countries still didn’t provide clarity on crypto regulations while in contrasts, other countries such as Switzerland, Singapore, and Malta leading in crypto space by cracking down malicious events in crypto space.
Nevertheless, the report shared shocking data for the overall cost of ransomware damage back in 2017. It was estimated in billion, presumably, $5 billion which might account !11.5 billion by 2019.
Essentially, hackers usually target high-quality and rich data such as important documents, videos, pictures or other data from electronic media and then demand bitcoin or other leading cryptocurrency from victims to regain the accessibility.
Moreover, they often demand victims to make payment within the stipulated period, failure to which may either increase the size of Ransome further or result in losing the targeted data.