Kidnappers in France target cryptocurrency entrepreneurs for ransom


French police rescued the father of a wealthy cryptocurrency entrepreneur in a nighttime raid after he was taken hostage for ransom, the latest alleged criminal effort in France to extort people involved in the management of digital assets.

The man was kidnapped Thursday morning in Paris, the prosecutor’s office said Sunday. “The victim turned out to be the father of a man who made his fortune in cryptocurrencies, and the incident was accompanied by a ransom demand,” its statement said, without giving their names or other specifics about their identities. Police investigators located the hostage in a house in the Essonne region south of Paris, from which he was rescued on Saturday night, the prosecutor’s office said.

Read more…
Source: AP News


Sign up for our Newsletter
The latest news and insights delivered right to your inbox.


Related:

  • Cyber-attack on UK contractor affects islanders

    August 28, 2025

    A personal data breach at a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) contractor has affected some people in Guernsey, officials have said. The Office of the Data Protection Authority (ODPA) said that UK-based company Access Personal Checking Services Ltd (APCS) had been notified that a third-party contractor had been subject to a cyber incident. APCS said the ...

  • TransUnion says hackers stole 4.4 million customers’ personal information

    August 28, 2025

    Credit reporting giant TransUnion has disclosed a data breach affecting more than 4.4 million customers’ personal information. In a filing with Maine’s attorney general’s office on Thursday, TransUnion attributed the July 28 breach to unauthorized access of a third-party application storing customers’ personal data for its U.S. consumer support operations. TransUnion claimed “no credit information was ...

  • Jamaica: Cyber attack on Office of Registrar General contained, but services impacted

    August 27, 2025

    The Office of the Registrar-General (ORG), formerly the Registrar General’s Department (RGD), says it was affected by a cyber incident detected on Sunday and is working to determine its full scope. “Our initial assessment indicates that this incident was primarily designed to disrupt the availability of our systems,” the ORG said Wednesday. “As investigations are still ...

  • The first AI-powered proof of concept ransomware has been spotted

    August 27, 2025

    Security researchers from ESET have identified the first known AI-powered ransomware, which serves as a warning for security teams as generative AI has, and will, continue to make cyberattacks much more accessible for criminals. Peter Strycek and Anton Cherepanov discovered the proof of concept, which they dubbed ‘PromptLock’, which, ‘leverages Lua scripts generated from hard-coded prompts ...

  • Nevada hit by cyber attack disrupting state services for thousands

    August 27, 2025

    A cyber attack targeting Nevada’s state technology systems has left thousands of residents without access to vital services for days, with many offices still struggling to restore full operations. The attack, which began early Sunday morning, forced the closure of numerous state agencies, including the DMV, State Police, and Attorney General’s offices on Monday and Tuesday. ...

  • A critical Docker Desktop security flaw puts Windows hosts at risk of attack – patch now

    August 26, 2025

    Docker has patched a critical severity vulnerability in its Desktop app for Windows and macOS which could have allowed threat actors to fully take over vulnerable hosts, exfiltrate sensitive data, and more. The vulnerability is described as a server-side request forgery (SSRF) and, according to the NVD, it “allows local running Linux containers to access the ...