Tag Archive for: Royal

Hackers who targeted the private hospital that treated Kate Middleton are threatening to release the Royal Family’s private medical information

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  • GCHQ and police investigating hacking gang Rhysida named after centipede

By Kevin O’sullivan

Published: | Updated:

Hackers who targeted the private hospital which treated Kate, Princess of Wales, are threatening to release private medical information belonging to members of the Royal Family.

The gang broke into the computer systems of the King Edward VII’s Hospital and warned they aim to release ‘data from the Royal Family’ on Tuesday unless they are paid £300,000 in the cyber currency Bitcoin.

The ransom demand was made on the dark web, where the hackers posted images of what they claim are stolen files including X-rays, letters from consultants, registration forms, handwritten clinical notes, and pathology forms.

Prince William departs the King Edward VII hospital with his wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge

Prince William departs the King Edward VII hospital with his wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge

The Princess of Wales was admitted to the King Edward VII's Hospital in 2012 with prolonged bouts of acute morning sickness during her first pregnancy. Pictured, Kate attends the Royal Variety Performance 2023 at the Royal Albert Hall

The Princess of Wales was admitted to the King Edward VII’s Hospital in 2012 with prolonged bouts of acute morning sickness during her first pregnancy. Pictured, Kate attends the Royal Variety Performance 2023 at the Royal Albert Hall

The gang said: ‘Unique files are presented to your attention! Data from the Royal Family! A large amount of patient and employee data. Sale in one lot!!’

GCHQ and police are investigating the attack by hacking gang Rhysida – named after a venomous tropical centipede.

The 56-bed private hospital in Marylebone has been used by the Royal Family for more than a century. The late Queen Elizabeth II was a patient and so was Prince Philip who spent almost a month being treated there before he died aged 99 in 2021.

The Princess of Wales was admitted there in 2012 with prolonged bouts of acute morning sickness during her first pregnancy. 

During her stay, two Australian radio DJs placed a hoax call and obtained private medical information about Kate – then the Duchess of Cambridge – which they then broadcast, forcing hospital bosses into an embarrassing apology. 

The nurse who unwittingly took the call later committed suicide over the prank.

Last night,…

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US says Royal ransomware gang plans ‘Blacksuit’ rebrand

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The U.S. government says Royal, one of the most active ransomware gangs in recent years, is preparing to rebrand or spinoff with a new name, Blacksuit.

In an update this week to a previously published joint advisory about the Royal ransomware gang, the FBI and U.S. cybersecurity agency CISA said that the Blacksuit ransomware variant “shares a number of identified coding characteristics similar to Royal,” confirming earlier findings by security researchers linking the two ransomware operations.

“There are indications that Royal may be preparing for a rebranding effort and/or a spinoff variant,” the government’s updated advisory reads.

CISA did not say why it released the new guidance linking the two ransomware operations, and a spokesperson did not immediately comment when reached by TechCrunch.

Royal is a prolific ransomware gang accused of hacking over 350 known victims worldwide with ransom demands exceeding $275 million. CISA and the FBI previously warned that Royal was targeting critical infrastructure sectors across the United States, including manufacturing, communications and healthcare organizations. The city of Dallas in Texas recently recovered from a ransomware attack it later attributed to Royal.

It’s not uncommon for ransomware gangs to create different ransomware variants, go quiet for long periods of time, or spin-off and splinter into entirely new groups, often in an effort to evade detection or arrest by law enforcement. But recently imposed sanctions by the U.S and U.K. governments are likely hampering the gang’s money-making efforts as victims refuse to pay the hackers’ ransoms for fear of violating strict U.S. sanctions laws.

The Conti connection

Security researchers previously found that Royal comprises ransomware actors from previous operations, including Conti, a prolific Russia-linked hacking group that disbanded in May 2022, shortly after a massive leak of the gang’s internal communications sparked by the gang sided with Russia in its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

After disbanding, Conti reportedly splintered into different gangs, some of whom formed the Royal ransomware gang months later. Royal soon began targeting hospitals and healthcare organizations and by…

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Royal Family Website Faces Cyber Attack By Russian Hackers: Report

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Royal Family Website Faces Cyber Attack By Russian Hackers: Report

The Royal family’s website was up and running again by midday

The Royal Family’s official website went down for about an hour and a half in the early hours of Sunday morning after being targeted by a cyber attack, The Telegraph reported. As per the report, no access to the website, its systems, or its content was gained. Upon visiting the URL, royal. uk, the page displayed an error message, ”Gateway time-out Error code 504.” 

”We’ve just received breaking news that the Royal Family website has crashed after allegedly being targeted by Russian hackers who have reportedly taken responsibility for the attack on social media. “If you try to access the website, you get an error message,” Sky News host Caroline Di Russo said. 

Russian hacker group Killnet has claimed responsibility for the cyber attack. In a message shared on Telegram, a messaging app, the hacker added a link to the website which provided information about the monarch, the Firm, and the Royal Family’s role in the UK and the Commonwealth.  They added the supposed takedown was an “attack on pedophiles”.

Though these attacks don’t cause major damage, they can lead to outages lasting several hours or even days. However, it has not been confirmed they were behind it.

The Royal family’s website was up and running again by midday.

As per Express.co.uk, KillMilk is the leader of the Russian hacktivist DDoS collective Killnet. KillNet is known for its Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) campaigns and has launched similar attacks against countries supporting Ukraine, especially NATO countries, since the start of the war in February last year.  A DDOS attack involves knocking a website offline by flooding it with traffic.

Killnet has in the past claimed attacks on US government websites and said it has taken action against other countries opposed to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In November last year, the European Parliament website was also hit by a cyber attack claimed by Killnet shortly after lawmakers approved a resolution calling Moscow a “state sponsor of terrorism”.

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It’s a hacking shame! – The Royal Gazette

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Created: Sep 29, 2023 08:00 AM

After watching 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968 and watching HAL 9000, faced with the prospect of disconnection, HAL decides to kill the astronauts to protect and continue his programmed directives. After that, I was never a big fan of computers.

However, times change and we must keep up or be left behind. I bought a computer and found a ten-year-old kid to show me how to use it — and, yes, it has made my life, should I say, a little easier. I can do my banking, pay my bills, get food delivered and even buy a plane ticket to go and see the kids.

However, I started reading stories of people, especially my age, losing their life savings from fraud, scams, banks and hotels being hacked, and even companies being hacked or being held to ransom. The nightmare of HAL came back! My first thought was to unplug the computer and abandon the world of technology altogether.

However, the more I thought about it and the more I talked to people, it became clear that I could take steps to protect myself against these threats. Apart from adding a security program, the big one is not to open e-mails with strange e-mail addresses or click on any links in the message. Even right now as I’m writing, I’ve just received an e-mail from One Communications saying “view your monthly statement”. I don’t use One Comm. Obviously, a scam/phishing attack.

So now I am asking. Am I the only one who felt embarrassed when our premier announced that the “Russkies” had hacked the government network, even though he did not say it as such, mostly like we were being held at ransom? By the way, it has not been confirmed that it was in fact the Russians.

I found it strange that the Premier tried to play down what had happened by saying, “There has been an incident, which is affecting not only the Bermuda Government but some other regional governments as well”, without saying which other governments have been affected, So I guess it’s OK since it happened to “other governments”?

But it is neither here nor there that other governments may have suffered the same disruption. We are Bermuda! We are supposed to be the leaders of international…

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