A Russian hacker known as Grief hacks the United States National Rifle Association (NRA) and threatens to leak the stolen data.
- Grief ransomware gang claims to have hacked the National Rifle Association.
- Hackers posted a set of documents as proof of the hack on the leak site as proof.
A Russian hacker known as Grief hacks the United States National Rifle Association (NRA) and threatens to leak the stolen data.
The attack was first disclosed by Grief, a ransomware gang reportedly linked to prolific Russian ransomware gang Evil Corp.
The threat actors added NRA to the list of compromised organisations on their leak site and published 13 stolen documents as proof of the hack, including minutes of the recent NRA meeting.
It threatened to leak more files if the NRA did not pay an undisclosed ransom.
The analysis of the sample doesn’t allow to determine whether the gang breached the organisation or one of its branches.
Researchers link the Grief ransomware to the DoppelPaymer operations that are considered part of the Evil Corp.
As reported earlier this year, the Grief ransomware gang previously went by the name of DoppelPaymer. The Grief name is said to be a short form of the group’s full name, “a.k.a. Pay or Grief.”
NRA public affairs managing director Andrew Arulanandam said on Twitter that although the organisation does not discuss matters relating to security, “the NRA takes extraordinary measures to protect information regarding its members, donors, and operations – and is vigilant in doing so.”
The NRA will face a difficult decision considering Evil Corp was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department in 2019, meaning the gun-rights group would have to ask permission before paying any ransom.
"A gun won't help. Even if the NRA pays the ransom, there is no guarantee that Grief will destroy the stolen data," said Paul Bischoff, privacy advocate at Comparitech.
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