A few days ago it was the turn of the potato chip giant, San Carlo. Now it’s the turn of MediaWorld, a well-known consumer electronics chain. Ransomware attacks are now daily news, and cybercriminal groups work tirelessly to target companies of all kinds.
The servers of MediaWorld – a company that is owned by the German MediaMarkt – according to what has been reconstructed by the Dutch platform RTL Nieuws, would have been hit over the past weekend. And the criminal group responsible for the attack would be the one nicknamed Hive, the same one that a few weeks ago took the servers of some American hospital networks hostage, blocking visits and exams from the day.
Ransom of 50 million
Even in the case of Mediaworld the attack would be of the ransomware type, and therefore it would be the classic block of systems with a ransom request to obtain the keys that allow it to be decrypted. In this case, according to what was leaked, the request of the criminals would amount to 50 million euros to be paid, as always, in cryptocurrency, because in the crypto wallets the money becomes a code and vanishes in a few moments, without leaving a trace.
To the MediaMarkt system engineers who have been working for three days to solve the problem, the message delivered would be the following: «Your network has been breached and all data has been encrypted. To regain access to all data, you need to purchase our decryption software ».
The inconveniences
At the moment MediaWorld has formalized the attack, without going into the details of the situation. But the chronicles tell of widespread inconvenience throughout the chain network, with terminals out of order, difficulties in connecting cash registers on the network and problems also in online order management. All in a very delicate and very important moment. MediaWorld, in fact, like the other consumer electronics chains is in full promotional phase in view of Black Friday. And systems harnessed by ransomware, right now, are a big deal.