DailyPost 2564
MOTEL ONE – THE HACKER AND THE HACKED!
The hacker and the hacked has been a familiar story, which is becoming more and more conspicuous with every subsequent hack. The hacker claims to have brought down the skies and doomsday or likely doomsday for the victim. The victim on the other hand claims that no great damage has been done, and that only some peripheral data was lost and that the customers / stakeholders need not be worried about it. The victim company / enterprise either refuses to talk to the media and gives very bland details, out of which nothing can be made out. They also claim that the cyber experts are working on it and they would take the security incident to its logical conclusion.
They would claim that their cyber defenses were formidable and they would fortify it further, given the latest attack on the company. The hacker group would release a teaser on the darknet, ask for ransom and if not paid would threaten to put company on the fire; that is to leak /sell the critical data, as claimed to be in his possession. The latest in the line of fire of this storyline Motel One, which disclosed a data breach following a ransomware attack. This group announced that is has been the target of ransomware actors, who have managed to steal some consumer data including details of some 150 credit cards.
Motel One is a leading low budget hotel chain. As per the group, unknown attackers infiltrated its network with an intention to launch a ransomware attack, “but had limited success thanks to its effective protective measures.” Motel One management also claimed that “the business operation of one of Europe’s largest hotel groups was never at risk.” The company informed the concerned data protection authorities and immediately engaged IT experts to investigate and remediate the incident.
All the hotel claims have been countered by BlackCat/ALPHV ransomware gang, who has taken the responsibility of this ransomware attack. Motel One as per the hacker group was added to one of the extortion sites on the dark web. They claimed to have stolen nearly 24.5 million files, totaling 6 TB in size. The stolen data is claimed to include PDT & RTF booking confirmations for the past three years. Additionally, they have significant amount of customers’ credit card data and internal company documents. This for sure holds sensitive information. Five days to negotiate is the time given by BlackCat, failing they would leak all the data. BleepingComputer contacted the hotel management and have got no response till the filing of the news report. What a crime and what criminals? The battle is in the media and dark web. Police does even seem to a part of this race!
LIMITED EXPERTISE, OUT OF SYNC LAW, LACK OF EXTRATERRITORIAL REACH AND TOTALLY MISSING INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION HAS LEAD TO A FLOURISHING CYBER CRIME BUSINESS.
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.