THELOGICALINDIAN - A doubtable in a case involving hacking blackmailing and Bitcoin has been arrested in Hong Kong A 30yearold computer artisan has been taken in aegis in affiliation with cyberattacks adjoin two biking agencies The man risks years of imprisonment Personal abstracts of barter was captivated for bribe Tour operators were asked to pay 1 Bitcoin for its absolution
Also read: Russian Crypto Expert Released After Allegedly Being Kidnapped
Send the Bitcoin if You Want It Back
Names, character agenda numbers, authorization capacity and buzz numbers of 20,000 audience were allotment of the acute information. The companies, Big Line Holiday and Goldjoy Holidays, appear the hacking of their computers on January 1 and 2. They told badge they had accustomed emails from the alien culprit who accepted 1 Bitcoin (about $15,000) to be paid as ransom.
Officers from Hong Kong’s Cyber Security and Technology Crime Bureau (CSTCB) raided an accommodation on Cheung Chau Island and arrested the man, South China Morning Post reported. During the operation, badge bedeviled two desktop computers, two laptops, a tablet, three adamantine disks and bristles adaptable phones. They additionally escorted the doubtable to his abode in Kowloon on Monday to accumulate added evidence. He has been declared by bounded media as an “IT worker”, a “computer technician”. The man was abandoned on Saturday night, January 6, at his home in Cheung Chau, The Standard reported.
The agencies were afraid on New Year’s Day aback the antagonist allegedly took advantage of attenuated aegis of their websites. The companies accustomed an email anon afterwards and were told to accelerate the Bitcoin to a anew opened address. The columnist of the bribery letter threatened that if they bootless to pay the bribe the claimed abstracts of their barter would be acquaint on the internet Saturday, a badge antecedent told SCMP. Afterwards blockage bags of logs on the servers, the Cyber Aegis Bureau agents managed to analyze the attacker’s IP abode and trace it aback to the suspect.
No Bitcoin, No Ransom, No Problem
No acute advice has been lost, as it was absolutely locked, not stolen. Police confused to apprehend the hacker hours afore the bribe deadline. No accuse accept been levied adjoin the doubtable yet, as board are still analytic him and acquisition advice from argumentative assay of accouterments and software. Law administration admiral accept not disqualified out added arrests as allotment of the advancing investigation. The CSTCB administrator Swalikh Mohammed declared bribery as a austere offence, amiss by up to 14 years in prison. He additionally warned:
Both biking agencies accept back apologized to their barter for the hacking incidents and apprenticed measures to advance cybersecurity. A Goldjoy adumbrative said the aggregation was admiring that a doubtable had been apprehended so quickly. He insisted that it was awful absurd its abstracts accumulator would be afraid afresh afterwards the new aegis upgrades. Big Line appear that it had taken actual countermeasures afterwards the breach. Almost $1.3 actor of allotment for cybersecurity improvements is accessible for baby to average sized businesses in the biking industry, government admiral reminded.
Hong Kong’s aloofness babysitter bidding apropos about the adventure involving the accessible annexation of acute information. “Travel agents, as abstracts users, should booty all reasonable aegis measures to assure customers’ claimed data,” Aloofness Commissioner Stephen Wong Kai-yi said, acquainted a “rising trend”.
The latest incidents are absolutely a additional adventure in the “Blackmail for Bitcoin” series. Back in November, one of the better bout operators in the burghal – Worldwide Package Travel Service, appear its chump database had been hacked. Personal information, including acclaim agenda numbers, of some 200,000 bodies had been bound by the hackers. WWPKG was asked by the alien blackmailers to pay a seven-figure ransom, afresh in Bitcoin. The aggregation alleged the badge and their experts managed to break the abstracts but no arrests were made.
No accident of banking advice has been appear in either of these cases. According to abstracts quoted by the bounded press, Hong Kong’s Cyber Security Bureau has recorded abutting to 6,000 cases of cybercrimes in 2024 alone. Banking losses, back the bureau was accustomed in 2024, accept been estimated at about $295 million.
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