The U.S. State Division’s Rewards for Justice program introduced as much as a $10 million bounty yesterday for data linking the Clop ransomware assaults to a overseas authorities.
“Do you’ve got information linking CL0P Ransomware Gang or another malicious cyber actors focusing on U.S. crucial infrastructure to a overseas authorities? Ship us a tip. You might be eligible for a reward,” tweeted the Rewards for Justice Twitter account.
Rewards of Justice (RFJ) is a U.S. Division of State program that provides financial rewards for data on menace actors and assaults impacting the nationwide safety of the USA.
Initially launched to assemble data on terrorists focusing on U.S. pursuits, this system has since expanded to incorporate data on cyber criminals, such because the Conti ransomware operation, Russian Sandworm hackers, REvil ransomware, and the Evil Corp hacking group.
Knowledge breaches at U.S. federal businesses
This new RFJ bounty comes after the Clop ransomware carried out data-theft assaults on corporations worldwide utilizing a zero-day vulnerability within the MOVEit Switch safety file switch platform.
The assaults began on Could twenty seventh, over the lengthy U.S. Memorial Day vacation, with the Clop ransomware gang claiming to have stolen information from lots 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.
On the identical time, CNN first reported that quite a few federal businesses, together with The Division of Power, have been breached throughout these assaults, with information seemingly stolen.
The Clop menace actors informed 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 should not focused on politics.
“We obtained a whole lot of emails about authorities information, we have no authorities information and something straight residing on uncovered and dangerous protected not encrypted file switch we nonetheless do the well mannered factor and delete all,” reads a message on the Clop information leak website.
Whereas the menace actors declare to be deleting any information stolen from governments, there isn’t any technique to decide if this truly takes place.
Due to this fact, federal businesses should make the belief that stolen information could possibly be abused or doubtlessly acquired by overseas governments.
The Rewards for Justice program hopes to forestall future assaults by attractive folks, together with different menace actors who might have details about the Clop operation, to submit ideas for a million-dollar reward.
To submit a tip, the State Division has arrange a devoted Tor SecureDrop server that can be utilized to submit data on Clop and different menace actors.
H/T vx-underground
