Hackers Break Into Virginia Health Professions Database, Demand Ransom

Or the organisation merely restores the data from their daily backup for just the cost of time and inconvenience. At worst one day's changes may be lost - hardly worth $10M.

-- Regards, David.

David Clayton Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a measure of how many questions you have.

The amount they demanded was just for bragging rights: it was crack by some script kiddie who didn't have much imagination, plus the usual "If it bleeds, it leads" fearmongering by the television stations.

If he had had the brains to demand a more realistic amount - say, $3,000 - _then_ it would have gotten interesting.

Bill Horne Temporary Moderator

The state should simply pay the ransom, then have police on-scene when the money is delivered. There's no way the bad guy(s) can collect it without exposing themselves; that's why kidnapping for money no longer occurs in the US.

Maybe they planned on having it sent through PayPal ...

If I were doing that kind of work, I would approach the organization that had been hacked, and offer a "No cure, no pay" contract to recover the data for some relatively minor amount. Assuming they were willing to sign, I'd produce a miracle cure, send them a bill, and make it my business to never, ever rub their nose in it.

Bill Horne Temporary Moderator