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:
- Witchetty: Group Uses Updated Toolset in Attacks on Governments in Middle East
September 29, 2022
The Witchetty espionage group (aka LookingFrog) has been progressively updating its toolset, using new malware in attacks on targets in the Middle East and Africa. Among the new tools being used by the group is a backdoor Trojan (Backdoor.Stegmap) that employs steganography, a rarely seen technique where malicious code is hidden within an image. In attacks ...
- BEC attacks: Most victims aren’t using multi-factor authentication – apply it now and stay safe
September 29, 2022
There has been a big rise in Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks – and most victims work at organisations which weren’t using multi-factor authentication (MFA) to secure their accounts. BEC attacks are one of the most lucrative forms of cyber crime: according to the FBI, the combined total lost is over $43 billion and counting, with ...
- Upgraded Prilex Point-of-Sale malware bypasses credit card security
September 29, 2022
Security analysts have observed three new versions of Prilex PoS-targeting malware this year, indicating that its authors and operators are back in action. Prilex started as ATM-focused malware in 2014 and it pivoted to PoS (point of sale) devices in 2016. While development and distribution peaked in 2020, the malware disappeared in 2021. Kaspersky analysts now report ...
- The secrets of Schneider Electric’s UMAS protocol
September 29, 2022
UMAS (Unified Messaging Application Services) is a proprietary Schneider Electric (SE) protocol used to configure and monitor Schneider Electric PLCs. Schneider Electric controllers that use UMAS include Modicon M580 CPU (part numbers BMEP* and BMEH*) and Modicon M340 CPU (part numbers BMXP34*). Controllers are configured and programmed using engineering software – EcoStruxure™ Control Expert (Unity ...
- Singapore firms see 54 cybersecurity incidents daily, struggle to keep up
September 29, 2022
The cybersecurity threat landscape is evolving so quickly companies in Singapore are finding it tough to keep up. Half feel “inundated” by an endless stream of cyber attacks, describing this as one of their biggest work frustrations. Just 25% of cybersecurity professionals in Singapore felt “very confident” in their organisation’s ability to adapt to new threats, ...
- Sophos fixes critical firewall hole exploited by miscreants
September 28, 2022
A critical code-injection vulnerability in Sophos Firewall has been fixed — but not before miscreants found and exploited the bug. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2022-3236, exists in the User Portal and Webadmin components of the firewall in versions 19.0 and older. While it hasn’t been issued a CVSS severity score, Sophos deemed it “critical” and noted ...

