According to Babbitt’s previous report , a hacker attacked Github, removed the source code of some users in the Git code base and recent updates, and left a blackmail message asking the victim to pay a ransom of 0.1 bitcoin. The attacker did receive a ransom, but the bitcoin received was not even enough to buy a cup of coffee in the United States.
Image source: Flickr
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The bitcoin address given by the hacker in the blackmail message received only one payment on May 3, the amount is only 0.00052525 BTC (about 2.95 US dollars), and the New York Cup Starbucks small cup of latte is also 3.45 US dollars.
According to Bleeping Computer, hackers access multiple code repositories, including GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket, by using account information leaked from third-party repository management services. The attacker emptied the code in the code base and the history commit record, leaving only one file containing the blackmail message. The extortioner asks the victim to provide 0.1BTC and promises to restore the emptied repository after receiving the ransom.
However, a GitLab user found that the code was not actually deleted and managed to restore the code base. So far, it seems that the owners of the 390 affected code bases have not paid ransoms to hackers. Judging from the amount of ransomware that hackers have received so far, programmers are by no means the best target group to implement such ransomware.
The online extortion that the attacker asked the victim to pay for the bitcoin ransom is nothing new. One of the most common forms is privacy video ransomware. The hacker claimed to hijack the victim's webcam and filmed the victim's privacy video. If the victim does not pay the Bitcoin ransom, they will spread the video. According to Hard Fork's February report, extortionists used this method to acquire more than $332,000 in BTC.
Fortunately, in this incident, the witty GitHub users did not let the blackmailers succeed.
