University "Profits" After Paying Ransomware Demands

[Lurick]

Summary:

A Dutch university paid ransomware attackers about €200,000 in 2019 after a ransomware attack brought down a large portion of their systems. Since then police recovered some of the money and eventually were able to return the recovered portion to the school, however this happened to be two years later during the crypto boom where the value of the recovered money had grown to about €500,000. The school has said the money will go towards helping financially strapped students.

 

Quotes

Quote

The university was hit with a ransomware attack in 2019 that locked them, and their students, out of valuable data until they agreed to pay a €200,000 ($208,000) ransom in Bitcoin.

"The criminals had encrypted hundreds of Windows servers and backup systems, preventing 25,000 students and employees from accessing scientific data, library and mail," the daily Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant said. 

The university agreed to pay the attackers after a week. "This was partly because personal data was in danger of being lost and students were unable to take an exam or work on their theses," the newspaper said.

 

As part of an investigation into the cyberattack, Dutch police tracked down a bank account belonging to a money launderer in Ukraine, into which a relatively small amount of the ransom money — around €40,000 worth of Bitcoin — had been paid.

Prosecutors were able to seize the account in 2020 and found a number of different cryptocurrencies.

 

My thoughts

Definitely an interesting turn of events for sure and definitely something good to come out of a ransomware attack which isn't what you generally hear about.

 

Sources

https://www.dw.com/en/dutch-university-wins-big-after-bitcoin-ransom-returned/a-62337229

[StDragon]

3 hours ago, Lurick said:

"The school has said the money will go towards helping financially strapped students."

Or, you know, upgrade the infrastructure and beef up the cyber security with much needed policies/procedures and tools (EDR, XDR).

[leadeater]

8 minutes ago, StDragon said:

Or, you know, upgrade the infrastructure and beef up the cyber security with much needed policies/procedures and tools (EDR, XDR).

Nah they totally already did that, like always happens...

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

[williamcll]

Well, what are they going to spend the money on?