You might have already heard about a ransomware group in the US by the name of Maze which is quite famous for their hacking-related activities and demanding payment from those who they have attacked in the past. Now, it is also known that ransomware attacks generally either have a payment or not meaning that their data is not recovered. Now, we are getting reports of a new procedure followed by the Maze Ransomware group. According to this report, it is known that the group contacted their “clients” who they have hacked previously and said that COVID-19 related economic hardships are causing them to take a tough line.
This tough line is that they are demanding payments from people by Sunday at the latest or else face “reputation damage and financial” loss details of which are not known to us so far. They say that “If you have failed to start communication in three days you can blame only yourself for you (sic) reputation damage and financial lost (sic),” in an email to their “clients”.
According to cyber experts, Maze is contacting firms that they have recently hacked and still have relevant information regarding them. This is the only which they can give them financial and reputational threat. These experts believe that “Maze does likely have data relating to these companies, and will likely publish it if they remain non-compliant,” while adding that
“In fact, we know they do as they’ve already published small snippets of the information. However, whether they have as much data as they claim and whether it’s as sensitive as they claim is a completely different matter. This could simply be an attempt to pressure the companies into settling before they complete their forensic investigations and realize that Maze did not extract as much data as they claim.”