JBS USA Paid $11 Million to Hackers for The REvil Ransomware Attack

Recently, in May, the world’s largest meat processor food company JBS Foods being attacked by hackers with REvil Ransomware that leads to paying $11 million to hackers for recovers the infected files.

Due to the attack at several sites, the company was temporarily forced to suspend all its production.

JBS is one of the world’s biggest food companies that operate in the USA, Australia, Canada, Great Britain, and so on. However, it servers clients from 190 countries all over the world.

This news was confirmed by the spokesperson of the JBS itself, who also pronounced that JBS has paid an amount of $11 million to the threat actors, those who have broken into its computer system and internal network last month.

Andre Nogueira, the CEO of JBS USA said that the negotiation with the hackers was one of the difficult decisions, but the main motive of the negotiation is to circumvent any further possible risk to the clients of JBS.

JBS USA Paid $11 Million to Hackers

The extortion amount of $11 million that was paid by the JBS USA to the threat actors was waged in bitcoins. However, this attack has been filed to FBI, and after investigation, along with American authorities, the FBI asserted that the Russian-speaking hacker’s group, REvil is behind this ransomware attack.

In an investigation, it also came out that the threat actors of REvil hacking group have demanded ransomware of $22.5 Million, and the hackers also stated that if the demanded money is not paid to them then they will leak the stolen data all over the internet. 

However, $22.5 Million is a huge amount to pay, that’s why the Andre Nogueira of JBS tried to negotiate with the hackers to lower the amount but it did not work. 

So the Andre Nogueira, the CEO of JBS USA told the hackers to leak the data that they have stolen. But, later the threat actor realized that this ransomware attack has captivated worldwide attention, that’s why the hackers refused to leak any further stolen information before the payment was made.

JBS has already restored the data from their backups and asked the threat actors for the decryptor as they need to decrypt two specific databases from the stolen data.

After having a long conversation of different counteroffers, both JBS and REvil agreed on a ransom of $11 million, and later on June 1, 2021, the money was being transferred by the JBS to the threat actor in bitcoins.

The spokesman of the White House National Security Council, in a report, stated that the private company should not prefer paying ransomware, without mentioning the name of JBS.

Giving ransomware to the threat actors is not good as it enriches their hopes and encourages such attacks in the future. If the private companies are paying the demanded ransomware then the cycle of these malicious attacks will continue to attack the companies.

However, they have also reported that there are several companies that have been the victims of such large-scale cyber attacks. In this ransomware attack of REvil the FBI claimed that they are trying their best to bring justice to the company.

Moreover, the FBI also pronounced that any further company that has been the victim of such a cyber attack must contact the agency without wasting any further time.

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