Family members have also been called, as threats are made to visit victims’ homes
It’s scary to receive a ransom demand from a cybercriminal, but I would argue it’s even more frightening to receive a threatening phone call from your attackers if you refuse to pay.
As ZDNet reports, the FBI has sent out a PIN (Private Industry Notification) alert to private sector companies warning them that not only are hackers using the DoppelPaymer ransomware in an attempt to extort money from affected organisations, but that they are also making follow-up phone calls to apply further pressure for victims to pay up.
According to the FBI’s PIN, shared by Catalin Cimpanu of ZDNet, the extortion phone calls date back as far as February 2020.
Not content with communicating via more “traditional” channels for ransomware negotiations, the FBI reports that hackers who had infected organisations with DoppelPaymer threatened and intimidated victims in phone calls, whilst hiding their real location.
In one instance, the attacker used “a spoofed US-based telephone number while claiming to be located in North Korea, threatened to leak or sell data from an identified business if the business did not pay the ransom.”
In subsequent calls to the same victim, the criminal threatened to “send an individual to the home of an employee and provided the employee’s home address.” Several of the employee’s relatives were also contacted.
It’s understandable that someone receiving such calls, particularly if their family members were also called by the extortionist, would feel extremely rattled.
It’s one thing receiving a ..
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