Slashdot Mirror
After Demanding $3 Million Ransom, Hacker Dumps Massive Customer Financial Data (dailydot.com)
Patrick O'Neill writes: Just over week after a hacker breached a United Arab Emirates Bank, demanding a $3 million ransom to stop tweeting customers' information, he appears to have dumped tens of thousands of customer files online. The actual data appears to be real. And it's vast. One database analyzed by the Daily Dot includes the sensitive information of around 40,000 customers, including their full names, credit card numbers, and birthdays. One account contained 4,7174,962.38 dirham, or $12,844,589.77. Those accounts' total earnings add up to $110,736,002. One bank executive confirmed the hack to Farooqui, adding that, "This is blackmail."
Presented by the "how to be racist with politically correct terms" department.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yes, that's exactly what it is.
What do you think holding something for ransom is?
Holding "something" for ransom isn't blackmail if that something is tangible. Even holding "information" for ransom isn't blackmail. If I have the password and won't give it to you until you give me $1M that's still not blackmail. Blackmail is when you threaten to release information for a ransom. The biggest problem with blackmail (as opposed to holding a password or something tangible for ransom) is that once the other party has that information, giving them the money really doesn't resolve the situation as they can still release it at any time in the future and/or demand more money to maintain status quo. Promises to delete the data, give you the only copy, etc... are hard to enforce or verify.