Hackers appear to have pulled off a $1 million heist with ransomware in South Korea. The ransomware attacked more than 153 Linux servers that South Korean web provider Nayana hosted, locking up more than 3,400 websites on June 10. In Nayana’s first announcement a few days later, it said the hackers demanded 550 bitcoins to free up all the servers — about $1.62 million. Four days later, Nayana said it’d negotiated with the attackers and got the payment reduced to 397 bitcoins, or about $1 million. This is the single largest-known payout for a ransomware attack, and it was an attack on one company. For comparison, the WannaCry ransomware attacked 200,000 computers across 150 countries, and has only pooled $127,142 in bitcoins since it surfaced. Ransomware demands have risen rapidly over the past year, tripling in price from 2015 to 2016. But even then, the highest cost of a single ransomware attack was $28,730. Nayana agreed to pay the ransomware in three instalments, and said Saturday it’s already paid two-thirds of the $1 million demand.
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ORIGINAL SOURCE: Cnet
