Hackers Behind Kaseya Attack Demand $70Mln in Ransom to Decrypt Locked Systems, Reports Suggest

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The hacking group REvil, which is believed to be behind the recent attack against the Miami-headquartered IT company Kaseya, has demanded a record $70 million ransom payment to decrypt the locked computers, the news portal The Record, an arm of the US-based cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, reported.

The Record reported late Sunday that REvil took responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on its dark web blog, claiming it affected more than one million systems during the Kaseya incident.

"If anyone wants to negotiate about [a] universal decryptor – our price is 70 000 000$ in BTC and we will publish publicly [a] decryptor that decrypts [the] files of all victims, so everyone will be able to recover from [the] attack in less than an hour", the hacking group, believed to have links to Russia, was quoted as saying.

Computer surveillance

CC BY 3.0 / Electronic Frontier Foundation / Backdoor Spies

If honoured, the ransomware payment would be the highest ever made, the news portal added.

Kaseya, which specialises in remote management software, reported the ransomware attack last week. Shortly after, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation launched a probe into the incident.

The hacking attack is yet another link in a series of major cybersecurity incidents that have been reported over the past year. The list of affected entities includes food processing company JBS, software firm SolarWinds, as well as various American government agencies, departments, and branches of the US military.

According to recent reports, REvil alone has targeted over 200 US-based businesses in an ongoing ransomware attack.