GoldenEye Criminals Finally Make Demands, $250,000 Is The Price

After weeks of staying silent, it would appear that the criminal hackers behind the GoldenEye ransomware attack that crippled state facilities all over the world have finally made its demands known. For $250,000, the hackers will provide affected companies or establishments with an encryption key related to the attack. Experts still think that the attack was sponsored by a country that was targeting Ukraine and the demand is just a smokescreen.

GoldenEye, also known as NotPetya, is a ransomware that is an offshoot of another malicious code called Petya. With a few modifications to the programming, perpetrators used it to attack several countries, but the most affected ended up being Ukraine. In a report by Motherboard, it would seem that a group taking credit for the attack is ready to collect on payment.

The official story is that the group wants more money than the $10,000 that it has already collected from victims if they want their systems to be unlocked again. The amount this time is 100 Bitcoins, which roughly converts to $256,000 at the current trading value.

The demand was posted on the dark web, but the page itself contained no links as to where the payment can be made. Instead, the hackers provided access to a chatroom where contact can be initiated.

Even with the new demand, however, security experts still believe that the hacker group is just a front designed to skew media attention. The current train of thought still leads to state-backed attacks, CNET reports, which seems to specifically target Ukraine.

What the hostile state is likely after is the destruction of data, which it has largely succeeded in doing. Many of the infected files by the ransomware were destroyed, a lot of which cannot be recovered. Considering the target and the sheer force of the attack, all signs still point to Russia.