Hackers Ask for Monero Ransom of US $ 7.5 million

[Agios]

Telecommunications company called Telecom Argentina, the incident occurred on July 21, 2020 ago. The mode of operation is similar to action by the hacker group REvil. The hackers are asking for payment in the form of Monero crypto assets (XMR), worth US $ 7.5 million.

The hacker also threatened and only gave 2 days to pay the ransom 109,345 XMR (US $ 7.5 million). If not paid on time the ransom price will double.

A number of company files are encrypted, and can only be saved through a "general-decryptor" provided by the hacker himself. It also determines that if Telecom Argentina fails to pay the ransom before July 21, 2020, the ransom value will increase to US $ 15 million (218,690 XMR).

The company immediately issued an announcement to employees not to use the network or open suspicious e-mails and advised to turn off the computer until the situation was resolved.

Until now, no hacker group has claimed responsibility. However, the mode of operation is similar to that of the hacker group REvil, because the name of the ransomware that is pinned is similar to attacks on others before.

[Vishnu.Reang]

They are asking for too much and they are never going to get it. For far fewer amount, the victims can hire someone from Kaspersky or Norton and get their files decrypted. During the WannaCry attack, the ransom demands were much lower, usually in the range of $200-1000. BTW, this is the same group (REvil) which demanded a $42 million ransom from Donald Trump a few months back. I don't know whether Trump paid the ransom or not.

[meanwords]

I think the most destructive thing about this hack is the fact that they are the largest telecommunications company in Argentina which will result in to their reputation plummeting because of this.

They are asking for too much and they are never going to get it. For far fewer amount, the victims can hire someone from Kaspersky or Norton and get their files decrypted. During the WannaCry attack, the ransom demands were much lower, usually in the range of $200-1000. BTW, this is the same group (REvil) which demanded a $42 million ransom from Donald Trump a few months back. I don't know whether Trump paid the ransom or not.

That is most likely that is going to happen. But how long are they going to decrypt this? Is it worth losing all the time or it's more worth to just pay the ransom? If they are out of commission for weeks/months or so, I wonder how will they handle their customers since they are largest telecommunications company in Argentina. It's a good thing that their service hasn't stop though.

But if they were to pay the ransom, will the hackers let it go?

[passwordnow]

Did the company paid the ransom? it's a good respond that they've told their employees not to touch the network. It should be the first step that they must do if ever their network has been infected or encrypted by the hackers with a ransomware. The hackers know that monero is very anonymous and they wouldn't track if they get paid. That company must learn that they should hire more cybersec experts and increase the security of their system to avoid this in the future.

[pakhitheboss]

Telecom giant of Argentina got hacked, what a shame? They either need to hire a good cybersecurity firm or they have to pay the ransom. The amount that the hackers are asking is considerably huge. This incident will surely plummet the stock market of Argentina. Economically the country is already struggling and after this incident, the situation would go worst.

[TravelMug]

Similar thread here, Argentina’s telecommunications hacked, demands Monero for ransom. So may I request the OP to locked this thread for good and continue the discussions over there. We don't need to have duplicate threads as it will be just create a lot of spam posts.