This is a double edge sword, right? You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.
I understand the side where you pay to delete data because it looks bad for your company that you fucked up. But on the other hand, the hackers could come back for more.
As we’ve learned, AT&T was hacked as part of at least 150 companies including Ticket Master and others previously covered within this blog and other media coverage around the web.
With that said, AT&T can now be double extored if not more extorted because they know they have the money to pay to supposedly delete the data.
We know from experience that we can’t trust these stupid fucks who decide that this is their mission to fuck with as many companies as they can; whether small companies, or large.
The hacker supposedly provided video evidence showing that the stolen data had been deleted, according to Wired’s latest report.
Really? We know its not completely deleted if you run a program that could recover deleted items. Back in the day, Norton had such a program where I was able to recover files I’ve accidently deleted but weren’t in the recycle bin. Don’t let this paragraph fool anyone! To permanently delete data, you must run a program that overwrites the portion of the drive that had it in the first place.
The company communicated through another hacker known as Reddington, who represented a threat actor from the hacking gang ShinyHunters.
Reddington alleges that the video evidence provided by the hacker shows that the only copy of AT&T’s stolen data has been deleted.
This isn’t the first run in with the threat actor known as Shiny Hunters.
On May 17th, 2024, The company paid 5.7 Bitcoin, which was $373,646, Wired confirmed the transaction through an online blockchain tracking tool.
Finally,
Former NSA hacker Jake Williams has a hard time blaming Snowflake for the breaches.
“They had to balance customer adoption with ease of use and didn’t force users to employ stronger security settings. But those more secure configuration options were available. This is akin to a car in the 80s that had seat belts but no alarm for unbuckling. If the manufacturer provided a safety option you chose not to use and you get hurt, whose fault is it?,” Williams said.
To read the entire article, please read Cybernews and their coverage titled AT&T pays threat actor $370,000 to delete stolen data – media and stay safe!
Let us know what you think.