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Clean energy company Invenergy said Friday it had been hacked, but that it “had no intention of paying any ransom,” after one of the world’s most famous ransomware gangs threatened to leak embarrassing details about its billionaire head. executive.
The Chicago-based private company, best known for building large wind and solar parks, said it had “investigated unauthorized activities in some of its information systems” and complied with all regulations requiring the disclosure of data breaches.
Invenergy said the attack did not affect its operations, adding, “Invenergy has not paid or intends to pay any ransom.”
The admission came after REvil, one of Russia’s most prolific warm-up criminal ransomware-linked hackers, claimed on its dark website that it had compromised the company, downloading 4 terabytes of data, including information on projects and contracts, according to screenshots seen by FT.
He also claimed to have “very personal and spicy” information about the company’s chief executive, Michael Polsky. According to hackers, this includes the energy mogul’s personal emails, compromised photos and details about his divorce from his first wife Maya Polsky. Invenergy made no comment on the claims.
Polsky amassed a $ 1.5 billion fortune in building electricity companies after emigrating to the United States from Soviet Ukraine in 1976 for $ 500, according to Forbes. In 2007, a judge ruled that Mrs. Polsky should be awarded half her husband’s cash and assets at the time (about $ 180 million) in what was then one of the most expensive divorces in history.
The Inventergy incident comes amid the growing scourge of cybercrime, which has included ransomware attacks, in which hackers take data and only publish it when a ransom is paid, which can affect the business of victims, as in the recent piracy of the Colonial gas pipeline to US.
The victims of REvil in recent months have included the Quanta, a Taiwanese supplier to Apple and the FBI has also accused the group of being behind last week’s attack JBS packaging.
Recently, ransomware groups have begun threatening to filter data as additional leverage to pressure targets to pay. Many operate “filter sites” on the dark web where they will post threats to their targets and subsequently post stolen data if those targets refuse to pay.
Some piracy groups report moving completely to an exfiltration-only model known as “extortion software,” based solely on the threat of reputational damage to gain payment, usually in cryptocurrency.
Invenergy said the attackers “did not encrypt any data,” suggesting that REvil chose not to encrypt company data and disrupt its business, or failed an encryption attempt.
“It simply came to our notice then. . . increasingly using all the embarrassing information they get as leverage against executives who may be able to influence the decision on whether or not to pay the lawsuit, ”said Brett Callow, threat analyst at cybersecurity group Emsisoft. .
“Unfortunately, it is a strategy that probably works. Even [if] the claims are false, some companies may be willing to pay simply to make a shameful situation go away. ”
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