{"id":38050,"date":"2020-11-06T06:00:03","date_gmt":"2020-11-06T06:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/e5ff5b47-0a52-4709-91be-a698c906116f"},"modified":"2020-11-06T06:00:03","modified_gmt":"2020-11-06T06:00:03","slug":"ransomware-gangs-that-steal-your-data-dont-always-delete-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/ransomware-gangs-that-steal-your-data-dont-always-delete-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Ransomware gangs that steal your data don’t always delete it"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"ransomware\"<\/span>
<\/span> Image: Manthana Chaiwong, ZDNet <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ransomware gangs that steal a company’s data and then get paid a ransom fee to delete it don’t always follow through on their promise.<\/p>\n

The number of cases where something like this has happened has increased, according to a report published by Coveware this week and according to several incidents shared by security researchers with ZDNet researchers over the past few months.<\/p>\n

These incidents take place only for a certain category of ransomware attacks \u2014 namely those carried out by “big-game hunters” or “human-operated” ransomware gangs.<\/p>\n

These two terms refer to incidents where a ransomware gang specifically targets enterprise or government networks, knowing that once infected, these victims can’t afford prolonged downtimes and will likely agree to huge payouts.<\/p>\n

But since the fall of 2019, more and more ransomware gangs began stealing large troves of files from the hacked organizations before encrypting the victims’ files.<\/p>\n

The idea was to threaten the victim to release its sensitive files online if the company wanted to restore its network from backups instead of paying for a decryption key to recover its files.<\/p>\n

Some ransomware gangs even created dedicated portals called “leak sites<\/a>,” where they’d publish data from companies that didn’t want to pay.<\/p>\n

\"Netwalker<\/span>