The Notorious Lockbit ransomware group announced that it conducted a cyberattack on the Federal Reserve of the United States on June 23, 2024, and compromised 33 terabytes of sensitive information. The group threatens to publish the data on June 25 at 20:27:10 UTC.
The data allegedly includes confidential details regarding American banking activities, which, if verified, could mark one of the most significant financial data breaches in American history.
The post titled ‘federalreserve.gov’ outlines the Federal Reserve’s structure, emphasising its critical role in managing the distribution of money across twelve major cities such as Boston, New York City, Philadephia, Richmond, Atlanta, Dallas, Saint Louis, Cleveland, Chicago, Minneapolis, Kansas City, and San Francisco.
The group has also issued a severe ultimatum to the Federal Reserve: the institution has 48 hours to appoint a new negotiator and dismiss the current one, whom the attackers derisively called a “clinical idiot” for valuing American banking secrecy at a mere $50,000.
The ransomware group is notorious for its hardline negotiation tactics. It often demands exorbitant sums to prevent the release of stolen data.
“33 terabytes of juicy banking information containing Americans’ banking secrets. You better hire another negotiator within 48 hours and fire this clinical idiot who values American’s bank secrecy at $50,000,” said Lockbit operators.
As per FalconFeeds, the group has also infiltrated 326 GB of data of Qufu TEMB Auto Parts Manufacturing Co. Ltd. The records include confidential documents, NDAs with major companies, and financial and personal information.
It seems that the group remains active even after the FBI campaign against the threat actor that resulted in the Bureau obtaining 7,000 Lockbit decryption keys.
Lockbit is one of the most prominent ransomware gangs. In January 2024, it was reported that the group was making a comeback, deploying Word files as a distribution method.
In November 2023, the gang targeted the U.S. arm of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. In June last year, the group was also accused of attacking Granules India.
The group gained the technical expertise from attacking Windows to target macOS in April 2023. The cyber crooks also threatened to leak SpaceX blueprints if the ransom wasn’t paid.
In the News: China’s RedJuliett group targets multiple entities in 10 countries
