Criminals encrypted important information and demanded a ransom in cryptocurrency. The school tried to negotiate to lower the price
University of California, San Francisco, paid $ 1.14 million in cryptocurrency to hackers. In early June, an attack on the server of the educational institution took place, the attackers infected them with a ransomware virus, reports the local edition of CBS San Francisco.
University staff explained that the payment of funds was necessary. Malicious software encrypted data that contained research important to the study. In exchange for cryptocurrency, hackers provided a tool to unlock information.
“The data that has been encrypted is important for some of the academic work we do as a university. Therefore, we made a difficult decision to pay part of the ransom, approximately $ 1.14 million, to the persons behind the attack in exchange for a tool to unlock encrypted data, ”the university representatives explained.
The publication noted that at first the employees of the institution tried to negotiate with hackers. It was proposed to reduce the amount of the ransom to $ 780 thousand. The criminals rejected this offer, explaining that they "do not work for free." As a result, the parties agreed on an amount of 116 BTC.
In mid-June, Israeli software development company Sapiens International paid hackers $ 250,000 in Bitcoin. They infected the company's servers with ransomware viruses and demanded a ransom in cryptocurrency for the safety of data.
