[2017-07-07] Petya Developers Break Radio Silence, Demand $250k

[Terraformer]

The public is finally hearing from the people behind the Petya attack. This marks the first time they’ve released a statement since the attack began to spread around the world, and they are demanding more money.

A Recap of the Petya Attack

It’s been over a week since the initial spread of the Petya virus, a malicious piece of ransomware software that took control of hundred of machines worldwide earlier last month. The initial round of attacks netted the programmers a cool $10,000 in Bitcoin, as each system that was infected received a ransom demand for $300 in exchange for the decryption keys for user’s files, along with an email to the hackers giving proof that the ransom was paid.

Unsurprisingly, the email inbox was taken down by the provider, Posteo, within a day or two, leaving the people who paid up out of luck in receiving the decryption keys. Despite this, the payments kept rolling in. Since then, the money in the address controlled by the attackers has been draining over the past few days, with only 0.045 bitcoins remaining in the wallet. Over 4.03 bitcoin has left the address, presumably going to Bitcoin mixing services which can effectively launder the stolen funds.

Petya Developers Re-emerge

The attacker or attackers released a statement a few days ago via the Tor-based website DeepPaste, a service similar to Pastebin which allows for anonymous parties to make announcements on the website. The announcement contained the signature of Petya’s private key, proving that they are the people behind the attack.

They are requesting 100 Bitcoins, a total currently valued at $256,000, to receive the private key that can decrypt any files stored on the computer, save the boot disk files as they have an entirely different encryption process. No transaction has been spotted on the blockchain with that amount of Bitcoin going to the attacker’s address, so it is unlikely any form of payment has been made, or even if it will be made.

http://bitcoinist.com/petya-developers-break-radio-silence-demand-250k/

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1715114276

[veleten]

the second wave of the attack started on the 4th of July
in Ukraine,for example,the virus was said to be activated from the servers of a company called ME.DO.K-
some sort of a financial book keeping programme automated complex
of course ,the goverment swiftly blamed everything on Russia,as per usual
the problem with PETY.A was that the virus spread through a legit company
not through some shady illegal services or through fishing attacks etc.
in any case, 10.000$ the attackers managed to get was not worth the effort
and none in his right mind will pay 256.000$ for the decription of files

[Kprawn]

Most of the people who were infected are reporting that they have paid and they have not received the key to unlock their files. This will create a

tendency with people not to pay in the future, because they have heard these stories and they will not receive anything in return if they pay. I am

not saying people should bend the knee and pay, but if you are infected and you have no backups... then you will have no choice to pay, if the

data is valuable to you. I have NO valuable data on my computer and family pictures and videos are all backed up on DVD's.  Do your backups

and keep it in a safe place. 

[richardsNY]

Most of the people who were infected are reporting that they have paid and they have not received the key to unlock their files.

Obviously, any human being with common sense and a properly functioning set of brains knows that these criminals can't be trusted. I seriously don't understand why people even end up paying the requested ransom as this will only incentivize these criminals to continue their nasty practices. Seriously, if people don't back up their important files and everything on a drive that isn't connected to their system, they are asking for it. I store all my important data off my systems on seperate hdd's, so if my system ever gets infected with ransomware, I'll just secure erase my drive and install a fresh version of Windows. It's basic stuff....

[veleten]

Most of the people who were infected are reporting that they have paid and they have not received the key to unlock their files.

Obviously, any human being with common sense and a properly functioning set of brains knows that these criminals can't be trusted. I seriously don't understand why people even end up paying the requested ransom as this will only incentivize these criminals to continue their nasty practices. Seriously, if people don't back up their important files and everything on a drive that isn't connected to their system, they are asking for it. I store all my important data off my systems on seperate hdd's, so if my system ever gets infected with ransomware, I'll just secure erase my drive and install a fresh version of Windows. It's basic stuff....

yep,I do same-all the important stuff is backed up and I ,just like kprawn,keep my photos and videos on a DVD
rest of the more or less important documents are on a USB drive,plus I have a deployable images of my windows
ready to be just copied and tuned and be ready to use in under thirty minutes total