Hackers attack Israel's Technion university, demand over $1.7 million in ransom

DarkBit has demanded 80 bitcoins ($1,729,320) as ransom from the university. 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. "Were sorry to inform you that we've had to hack Technion network completely and transfer all data to our secure servers. So, keep calm, take a breath and think about an apartheid regime that causes troubles here and there," DarkBit group wrote in the mail. The group also shared a messenger ID for the Tox secure messenging app, through which individuals can contact them to recover their personal files. DarkBit has claimed that the files are encrypted using AES-256 military-grade algorithm. "Any try for recovering data without the key (using third-party applications/companies) causes permanent damage," DarkBit wrote. A cybersecurity analyst has identified some of DarkBit's social media on Telegram, Twitter, Reddit, YouTube and Facebook. "Seems to be an organized group, likely state-sponsored. I assume they will begin uploading stuff there soon," he wrote on LinkedIn. It was unclear as of Sunday afternoon what vulnerability at the Technion had led to an embarrassing hack of such an elite science university, although the school said classes could continue somewhat normally, provided students switched to taking notes by hand in an old-fashioned way, or at least disconnected their laptops from the university network.