03 Nov 2021; MEMO: A hacker group calling itself Black Shadow has leaked the profile data of hundreds of Israeli members of the LGBTQ community after an Israeli firm refused to pay a $1 million ransom, the Jerusalem Post reported yesterday.
The hackers broke into web hosting company Cyberserve's servers, seized data from gay chat and dating app Atraf, Dan bus company and tour booking company Pegasus.
According to the Jerusalem Post, the hackers had issued a 48-hour ultimatum to receive a $1 million ransom or they would start leaking users' personal data. It appears the random request was ignored and so the hackers began disclosing the information.
On its Telegram channel, Black Shadow wrote: "48 hours ended! Nobody send us money. They try to chat us, we will show you our chats. Data will be uploaded soon. But this is not the end, we have more plan."
Ynet News reported Ch, an Israeli gay from Tel Aviv, saying: "It's awful to break into my personal space and threaten to reveal my correspondence and pictures. I hide my sexual orientations, and my family and friends know nothing. It's very problematic for me, and I'm really helpless these days and do not know what to do."
Cyberserve is an Israeli web hosting company that provides servers and data storage for other companies across industries.
Black Shadow posted screenshots of chat conversations which allegedly took place with representatives of Cyberserve, one of them offered the group $250,000 in bitcoin and asked that they not tell others that they had received the money.
"Do u really want to mess up with [the] Israel government, because this will end badly for u," wrote the alleged representative, warning, according to the Jerusalem Post, that the Israeli "cyber crime investigators" would come after the group and that they would get no money if they didn't accept the offer, which was raised to $350,000 in bitcoin.
Cyberserve denied that the chat was conducted with the company, or its representatives, arguing that if they had agreed to the ransom, the hackers would seek more in the future.
