US travel firm $4.5M ransom negotiation open chat

Post by namdnay » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 9:15 AM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #44

stu2b50 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about that. For one, travel margins are not exactly the same as SaaS margins. Secondly, there's the global pandemic and all, kinda hurts the free cash of most travel companies. I wouldn't be surprised if they genuinely would have trouble coughing up 10 million two days after the attack hit.

CWT is used by corporate travel systems. I'd expect their margins to be similar to enterprise software vendors, rather than other travel agencies.

Post by markdown » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 9:29 AM UTC

markdown wrote: post #287

malikNF wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>democratizing large scale crime Ah give me a break, I am having a very hard time wrapping my mind around this obsession HN has for hating cryptocurrencies and blockchains. Solution to everything is to ban things we don't like, also while we are at it, lets ban credit cards too, credit-card fraud is close to 30Billion world wide[1]. People tend to focus on the bad about technology instead of all the good it can brin…

> everything can be used for both good and bad I'd love to hear from you about all the good that Bitcoin has brought. Please enlighten us.

Post by uncleputin » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 9:41 AM UTC

gruez wrote: post #158

jhgorrell wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kinda funny to see 1BTC sent to check it worked before they sent the rest. Cant undo it like a wire transfer...

But why 1 BTC? That's worth more than 10k. Surely they could have sent a fraction? Or maybe they didn't know bitcoins can be split?

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 9:58 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #333

hellotomyrars wrote: post #40

While these stories are becoming all too common I’d like to think that while we’re in a golden age of being a ransomware payouts, it will lead to actually caring about security by many of the high-profile affected companies. While the overall cost may be low for them, if they don’t make meaningful changes to prevent these issues in the future, it’s not hard to imagine it might add up quickly. I don’t support these at…

While these stories are becoming all too common I’d like to think that while we’re in a golden age of being a ransomware payouts, it will lead to actually caring about security by many of the high-profile affected companies. It may also lead to companies paying for a more aggressive response. Uber has been known to deal with fraud by eventually finding the fraudster, even in Nigeria, and having them "visited".[1] [1]…

Post by vmception » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 10:09 AM UTC

istjohn wrote: post #282

vmception wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That analogy only works if banks were paying people to pretend to rob them all day every day and show them how they did it, and also underpaying them. so, no.

Actually, you're making my point for me. Banks don't typically hire physical pen testers at all, and yet our reaction to a bank robbery is not, "Well, that's just what you get for not taking security seriously." Nor is that our reaction when a gas station gets held up. In a perfect world, everyone can be trusted, and we don't need locks on our doors or passwords on our phones. In a dystopia, everyone has to carry a g…