$10 million: the amount of money required by hackers not to disclose Bouygues Construction data

Finally, the hackers behind the Bouygues Construction attack have come to an end.

They would demand the payment of a $10 million ransom in order not to disclose the French firm's sensitive data.

This article will also interest you: Bouygues Constructions is a victim of more than one cyberattack with ransomware

Last week on Twitter we could read this message issued by the construction company: "the @Bouygues_C computer network has been victim of an act of cybercrime. Every effort is made to return to normal as soon as possible. We are in close contact with our customers, our partners and the relevant authorities." In a press release, published on 31 January, Bouygues Construction stated: "A ransomware-type viral attack was detected on the computer network of Bouygues Construction on January 30. As a precautionary measure, information systems have been shut down to prevent any spread. At this time, teams are fully mobilized for a return to normality as quickly as possible with the help of experts. The equipment is gradually being returned to service after being tested. Operational activity at construction sites is not being disrupted to date. All employees are fully mobilized to ensure that the activity continues in order to minimise the impact for our customers and partners. We are in close contact with them and with the authorities. The group will provide an update at the beginning of the week.

On the website specializing in business cybercrime and crime, Zataz, it was noted that more than 200GB of data have been stolen from Bouygues Construction systems. And not to disclose it, knowing that this amount of data necessarily contains sensitive information, cybercriminals demanded payment of $10 million.

We remember well that this cyberattack took place at the time of the International Cyber Security Forum which took place in Lille for its 2020 edition in France. Since then the computer system of the French giant has been locked. According to some experts, the return to normalcy for Bouygues Construction may take even longer, or even a month and a half at least. It is then clear that the report issued by Malwarebytes on the quarterly state of cybersecurity in 2019 was totally accurate. Indeed, the resurgence of ransomware is no longer in question. We are talking about a new trend. Hackers are increasingly favoring this strategy because it can pay off big in one go. However, they are going beyond the usual framework. In fact, they are no longer content to encrypt the data; they now threaten their victims to publish their secrets in case of non-payment of the ransoms demanded. That's what the Maze hacker group does. They were the ones who attacked the French group and it was also the source of the attack on the American city of Pensacola. In the past, they had demanded more than $6 million in ransom payments from Southwire, one of North America's largest wire and cable manufacturers.

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