On February 13, 2023, the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology was breached by a new anti-Israel threat actor calling itself DarkBit. The DarkBit group is demanding 80 Bitcoin for decryption, but experts pointed out that the hacker crew appears to be politically motivated. The group is threatening to raise the amount by 30% if Technion refuses to pay the demanded sum within 48 hours.
Israel’s Technion Institute of Technology was breached on Sunday by a new anti-Israel threat actor calling itself DarkBit. The DarkBit group is demanding 80 Bitcoin for decryption, but experts pointed out that the hacker crew appears to be politically motivated. The group is threatening to raise the amount by 30% if Technion refuses to pay the demanded sum within 48 hours.
The attack has forced the university to proactively block all communication networks. The group has also said that the amount will go up by 30% if the ransom is not received within 48 hours.
“You will receive a decrypting key after the payment. Notice that you just have 48 hours. After the deadline, a 30% penalty will be added to the price. We put data for sale after 5 days,” DarkBit wrote in a message on the university website, which was shared by Tel Aviv-based cybersecurity professional Alon Gal, co-founder and CTO of Hudson Rock.
“We’re sorry to inform you that we’ve had to hack Technion network completely and transfer all data to our secure servers. We will sell all your data if you don’t pay us 80 bitcoins. Your data is now our property. If you want to get it back, you have to pay us 80 bitcoins. If you don’t pay us within 48 hours, the price will go up by 30%.”
The group has also threatened to release the data if the university does not pay the ransom.
Technion is one of Israel’s top universities and trains thousands of high-level engineers every year.
The attack comes amid a wave of cyberattacks on Israeli institutions in recent months. In December, the Israeli government was hit by a massive cyberattack that caused widespread outages. The attack was attributed to Iran and was seen as a retaliation for a series of Israeli airstrikes on Iranian targets in Syria.
The attack on Technion is the latest in a series of attacks on Israeli institutions by anti-Israel hackers. In 2021, a group of hackers calling themselves the Black Hat Hackers targeted Israeli websites and government institutions, causing widespread outages. The group claimed that the attacks were in retaliation for Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.
The attacks on Israeli institutions are part of a wider trend of increasing cyberattacks on critical infrastructure around the world. In 2021, the United States was hit by a series of high-profile cyberattacks, including an attack on the Colonial Pipeline that caused widespread gasoline shortages.
The attacks on Israeli institutions and critical infrastructure around the world underscore the need for increased vigilance and preparedness against cyber attacks.