Stablecoin provider Tether extorted over allegedly stolen emails

By Duncan Riley for SiliconANGLE
Tuesday, March 2, 2021

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That resulted in parent company iFinex being sued by the New York Attorney General’s office in April 2019 in a case settled Feb. 23. As part of the settlement, iFinex agreed to pay a fine of $18.5 million in return for admitting no wrongdoing, along with a number of other compliance requirements for the next two years.

“This case is interesting in view of the previous legal proceedings of the victims: cybercriminals may deliberately target vulnerable organizations susceptible to racketeering tactics,” Ilia Kolochenko, founder and chief executive of web security company ImmuniWeb, told SiliconANGLE.

“Under the circumstances, it would be reasonable to negotiate with the hackers, while urgently performing an internal investigation,” Kolochenko explained. “It may be a good idea to run the forensic investigation under the direction of an external law firm: this may later preclude discovery of the investigation report in court proceedings if such are initiated by victims of the alleged breach.”

Without understanding the scope and the impact of the alleged breach, it is impossible to make sound decisions whether to pay or not to pay, Kolochenko added. “Sometimes, paying may be the only solution to protect the company and its clients, but no guarantee exists that attackers will honor their promises or stop the extortion,” he said. Read Full Article