Hackers, who stole confidential information about A-list celebrities from a law firm is demanding a sum of $1m for information on Madonna.
Hacking group REvil hacked top entertainment attorney Allen Grubman’s NYC law firm and stole 756 gigabytes of confidential documents on A-list celebrities including Bruce Springsteen, Mariah Carey and U2.
The hackers had earlier increased their ransom to $42m after the law firm refused to pay their initial ransom price.
Once the hackers realized that their demands were not being met, they revealed that they have confidential information about President Donald Trump which may be damaging.
They posted via the dark web: “The next person we’ll be publishing is Donald Trump … We found a ton of dirty laundry.”
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However, on Monday, REvil revealed the Trump documents were off the market, stating: “Interested people contacted us and agreed to buy all the data about the US president …We are pleased with the deal and keep our word.”
They went on to say: “We are preparing to auction Madonna data … The buyer has the right to do whatever he sees fit with the data.”
Brett Callow, from cybersecurity firm Emsisoft, told Page Six, “What information REvil had on Trump we may likely never know. But they were almost certainly bluffing about it being ‘presidency-ending material.’ But let’s assume this is being treated as a terrorist matter, perhaps because of Trump, so the law firm was prevented from paying the ransom or negotiating.
“The hackers were also prevented from making any money, so they went to Plan B, removing Trump from the deal and instead auctioning off the celebs’ information separately.”
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