The U.S. State Department’s Rewards for Justice program introduced as much as a $10 million bounty yesterday for info linking the Clop ransomware assaults to a international authorities.
“Do you have got information linking CL0P Ransomware Gang or every other malicious cyber actors concentrating on U.S. important infrastructure to a international authorities? Send us a tip. You could possibly be eligible for a reward,” tweeted the Rewards for Justice Twitter account.
Rewards of Justice (RFJ) is a U.S. Department of State program that provides financial rewards for info on risk actors and assaults impacting the nationwide safety of the USA.
Initially launched to collect info on terrorists concentrating on U.S. pursuits, this system has since expanded to incorporate info on cyber criminals, such because the Conti ransomware operation, Russian Sandworm hackers, REvil ransomware, and the Evil Corp hacking group.
Data breaches at U.S. federal businesses
This new RFJ bounty comes after the Clop ransomware performed data-theft assaults on corporations worldwide utilizing a zero-day vulnerability within the MOVEit Transfer safety file switch platform.
The assaults began on May twenty seventh, over the lengthy U.S. Memorial Day vacation, with the Clop ransomware gang claiming to have stolen information from tons of of corporations.
This week, Clop started extorting corporations by itemizing their names on a knowledge leak website, promising to start out leaking information if a ransom was not paid.
At the identical time, CNN first reported that quite a few federal businesses, together with The Department of Energy, had been breached throughout these assaults, with information possible stolen.
The Clop risk actors advised BleepingComputer earlier this month that any information stolen from governments was instantly deleted. They reiterated these claims this week in a message on their Tor information, saying they’re solely financially motivated and are usually not involved in politics.
“We obtained a variety of emails about authorities information, we have no authorities information and something immediately residing on uncovered and unhealthy protected not encrypted file switch we nonetheless do the well mannered factor and delete all,” reads a message on the Clop information leak website.
While the risk actors declare to be deleting any information stolen from governments, there isn’t any technique to decide if this truly takes place.
Therefore, federal businesses should make the belief that stolen information could possibly be abused or doubtlessly acquired by international governments.
The Rewards for Justice program hopes to forestall future assaults by engaging folks, together with different risk actors who could have details about the Clop operation, to submit ideas for a million-dollar reward.
To submit a tip, the State Department has arrange a devoted Tor SecureDrop server that can be utilized to submit info on Clop and different risk actors.
H/T vx-underground