It is this Monday, October 17, that the ultimatum to the Regulatory Authority for Telecommunications and Posts of Senegal by the group of hackers Karakurt expires.
Since last week, these hackers have claimed a computer attack against the telecoms regulator, to which they have sent a ransom demand, the size of which has not been disclosed. They threaten to release 102 gigabytes of strategic data if the ransom is not paid.
The Senegalese telecommunications regulator, which has warned that he will not pay, is not the only victim of hackers who have revealed several other companies currently affected by his computer attacks.
According to global consulting giant Accenture, Kakakurt has been active since June 2021. The group targets small and medium-sized organizations, it gradually infiltrates a computer system to extract data. It does not inject potentially destructive malware. After mining, it moves on to extorting ransom to not release the data publicly or to the competitors. Accenture says the group changes its tactics based on the victim’s environment. According to computer security firm Kaspersky, the cyber attack affecting the Telecoms Regulatory Authority of Senegal uses software and functions available on the victim’s system to perform malicious actions there.
Last June, the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Treasury Department and the Financial Crimes Network had jointly warned of a large-scale cyberattack that Karakurt was preparing. The three organizations had stated that known ransom demands from this group of hackers ranged between 25,000 and 13 million dollars.