{"id":12740,"date":"2024-04-19T15:04:50","date_gmt":"2024-04-19T12:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/fbi-estimates-akira-ransomware-damage-at-42-million\/"},"modified":"2024-04-19T15:04:50","modified_gmt":"2024-04-19T12:04:50","slug":"fbi-estimates-akira-ransomware-damage-at-42-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/fbi-estimates-akira-ransomware-damage-at-42-million\/","title":{"rendered":"FBI Estimates Akira Ransomware Damage at $42 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ic3.gov\/Media\/News\/2024\/240418.pdf\">reported<\/a> on a group responsible for developing the Akira ransomware, which has caused damages exceeding $42 million. <\/p>\n<p>The FBI conducted its investigation in collaboration with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the European Cybercrime Centre at Europol (EC3), and the Netherlands National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-NL). <\/p>\n<p>According to the document, Akira has been targeting businesses and critical infrastructure in North America, Europe, and Australia since March 2023. The malware gains access through pre-installed VPN services lacking multi-factor authentication. <\/p>\n<p>The ransomware extracts credentials and other confidential information from the device, then locks the system, displaying a ransom demand.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cAkira does not leave an initial demand or payment instructions on compromised computers. Hackers will not provide this information until the victim contacts them,\u201d law enforcement stated. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>To restore access, the group demands payments in bitcoin from the attacked organizations. <\/p>\n<p>Law enforcement agencies have issued recommendations to prevent potential breaches. Investigators advised organizations to implement multi-factor authentication, system-wide encryption, and network traffic filtering, as well as to disable unused ports. <\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cThe FBI, CISA, EC3, and NCSC-NL recommend continuously testing your security program in a production environment to ensure optimal protection,\u201d the document states. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Back in August 2023, the FBI seized nearly $9 million in bitcoin from the operators of the Qakbot botnet. <\/p>\n<p>In February 2024, the United Kingdom&#8217;s National Crime Agency <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/uk-authorities-seize-lockbit-ransomware-sites\">seized<\/a> a darknet site belonging to the LockBit hacker group. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported on a group responsible for developing the Akira ransomware, which has caused damages exceeding $42 million. The FBI conducted its investigation in collaboration with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the European Cybercrime Centre at Europol (EC3), and the Netherlands National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-NL). [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"","news_style_id":"","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[44,1111],"class_list":["post-12740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-cybercrime","tag-cybersecurity"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"18","promo_type":"","layout_type":"","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}