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:
- Months after NSA disclosed Microsoft cert bug, datacenters remain unpatched
January 26, 2023
Most Windows-powered datacenter systems and applications remain vulnerable to a spoofing bug in CryptoAPI that was disclosed by the NSA and the UK National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) and patched by Microsoft last year, according to Akamai’s researchers. CryptoAPI helps developers secure Windows-based apps using cryptography; the API can be used, for instance, to validate certificates ...
- New Mimic Ransomware Abuses Everything APIs for its Encryption Process
January 26, 2023
Trend Micro researchers discovered a new ransomware that abuses the APIs of a legitimate tool called Everything, a Windows filename search engine developed by Voidtools that offers quick searching and real-time updates for minimal resource usage. This ransomware (which Trend Micro researchers named Mimic based on a string we found in its binaries), was first ...
- HHS: Ransomware groups continue to target U.S. health sector
January 25, 2023
The Royal and Blackcat ransomware groups continue to aggressively target the U.S. health sector, according to a recent advisory from the Department of Health and Human Services. Just this week, the Washington Post described an apparent recent attack by Blackcat on NextGen Healthcare, a company that provides electronic health record and practice management software to ...
- Data breach may have leaked classified law enforcement operations information to criminals
January 24, 2023
A company that provides tech solutions to law enforcement agencies has reportedly suffered a breach that might jeopardize ongoing police operations and undercover personnel. It is unclear if criminals currently under investigation have accessed the information, but the fact that cybercriminals have it and could potentially sell it is disturbing. On January 11, Wired reported that ...
- ACSC Ransomware Profile – Royal
January 24, 2023
The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) is aware of a ransomware variant called Royal, which is being used by cybercriminals to conduct ransomware attacks against multiple sectors and organisations worldwide, including Australia. Once gaining access to a victim’s environment, cybercriminals use this ransomware for similar purposes to other variants such as encrypting their data and ...
- Vice Society Ransomware Group Targets Manufacturing Companies
January 24, 2023
The Vice Society ransomware group made headlines in late 2022 and early 2023 during a spate of attacks against several targets, such as the one that affected the rapid transit system in San Francisco. Most reports have the threat actor focusing its efforts on the education and the healthcare industries. However, through Trend Micro’s telemetry data, ...