US Travel Giant Paid 414 Bitcoins in Ransom to Hackers

CWT, a US-based travel management company, has paid $4.5 million to hackers as ransom money last week following the theft of sensitive corporate information.

As reported by Reuters, hackers breached the security of more than 30,000 computers of the company and claimed to have stolen two terabytes of files, including financial reports, security documents, and even employees’ personal data.

Initially, hackers demanded $10 million in ransom, however, after negotiation, the final settlement was made at $4.5 million. The travel company transferred 414 Bitcoins, equivalent to that amount, to hackers’ wallet.

The hackers also pointed out that the asked ransom was much cheaper than the cost of lawsuits and also the reputational losses if the compromised information were leaked. CWT reduced the initial amount citing the impact of COVID-19 on the company’s business. 

Last year, the company reported $1.5 billion in revenue and highlighted that its clients include a third of all companies on the S&P 500 US stock index.

“We can confirm that after temporarily shutting down our systems as a precautionary measure, our systems are back online and the incident has now ceased,” CWT said in a statement.

“While the investigation is at an early stage, we have no indication that personally identifiable information/customer and traveler information has been compromised.”

The company, however, did not publicize any details of the investigation.

Reprinted from financemagnates , the copyrights all reserved by the original author.