A Fort Lauderdale, Florida, group of hackers or hacker, going by the alias “ContiLocker Team,” demanded $40 million in ransom for the return of one terabyte in personal data and files back to the Broward County School District.
This text message was sent to the school district according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel: “The bad news is that we hacked your network and encrypted your servers, as well as downloaded more than 1 terabyte of your personal data, including financial, contracts, databases and other documents containing (Social Security numbers) addresses (dates of birth) and other information about students and teachers.
“If this data is published, you will be subject to huge court and government fines. The good news is that we are businessmen. We want to receive ransom for everything that needs to be kept secret, and don’t want to ruin your reputation.”
The hackers demanded a hefty price for the return of the personal data, “The amount at which we are ready to meet you and keep everything as collateral is $40 million.”
A perplexed representative of the school district asked if there had been a mistake. As the hackers persisted, the representative tried clarifying, “Surely this is a mistake? (A)re there extra (zeroes) in that number by mistake?”
According to the Broward County School District, “A cyber security firm was engaged to assist. BCPS is approaching this incident with the utmost seriousness and is focused on securely restoring the affected systems as soon as possible, as well as enhancing the security of its systems.”
In a statement on Wednesday, the school district said it has “taken steps to enhance the security of its systems, including additional administrative, technical and physical safeguards.”
“[We are] not aware of any student or employee personal data that has been compromised as a result of this incident,” the statement indicated
Source: Newmax
