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:

  • Analyzing an Old Bug and Discovering CVE-2021-30995

    January 14, 2022

    On April 26, 2021 Apple patched CVE-2021-1740, which was a vulnerable function inside the system daemon process cfprefsd (these types of processes usually run in the background and handle system tasks). The bug could have been exploited to read arbitrary files, write arbitrary files, and get root privilege escalation. It was addressed in Apple’s Security ...

  • The race towards renewable energy is creating new cybersecurity risks

    January 14, 2022

    The renewable energy industry is becoming more important as countries attempt to move away from fossil fuels, but the continued growth of the sector must be managed with cybersecurity in mind, or there’s the danger that vulnerabilities in everything from power plants down to smart meters could leave energy providers and their customers open to ...

  • Ukraine hit by ‘massive’ cyber-attack on government websites

    January 14, 2022

    Ukraine has been hit by a “massive” cyber-attack, with the websites of several government departments including the ministry of foreign affairs and the education ministry knocked out. Suspected Russian hackers left a message on the foreign ministry website, according to reports. It said: “Ukrainians! … All information about you has become public. Be afraid and expect ...

  • Fingers point to Lazarus, Cobalt, FIN7 as key hacking groups attacking finance industry

    January 13, 2022

    The Lazarus, Cobalt, and FIN7 hacking groups have been labeled as the most prevalent threat actors striking financial organizations today. According to “Follow the Money,” a new report published on the financial sector by Outpost24’s Blueliv on Thursday, members of these groups are the major culprits of theft and fraud in the industry today. The financial sector ...

  • Iranian intel cyber suite of malware uses open source tools

    January 12, 2022

    FORT MEADE, Md. – To better enable defense against malicious cyber actors, U.S. Cyber Command’s Cyber National Mission Force has identified and disclosed multiple open-source tools that Iranian intelligence actors are using in networks around the world. These actors, known as MuddyWater in industry, are part of groups conducting Iranian intelligence activities, and have been seen ...

  • OceanLotus hackers turn to web archive files to deploy backdoors

    January 12, 2022

    The OceanLotus group of state-sponsored hackers are now using the web archive file format (.MHT and .MHTML) to deploy backdoors to compromised systems. The goal is to evade detection by antivirus solutions tools which are more likely to catch commonly abused document formats and stop the victim from opening them on Microsoft Office. Also tracked as APT32 ...