Tag Archive for: $500K

Bugcrowd snaps up $102M for a ‘bug bounty’ security platform that taps 500K+ hackers

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Bugcrowd — the startup that taps into a database of half a million hackers to help organizations like OpenAI and the U.S. government set up and run bug bounty programs, cash rewards to freelancers who can identify bugs and vulnerabilities in their code — has picked up a big cash award of its own to grow its business further: an equity round of $102 million.

General Catalyst is leading the investment, with previous backers Rally Ventures and Costanoa Ventures also participating.

Bugcrowd has raised over $180 million to date, and while valuation is not being disclosed, CEO Dave Gerry said in an interview it is “significantly up” on its last round back in 2020, a $30 million Series D. As a point of comparison, one of the startup’s bigger competitors, HackerOne, was last valued at $829 million in 2022, according to PitchBook data.

The plan will be to use the funding to expand operations in the U.S. and beyond, including potentially M&A, and to build more functionality into its platform, which — in addition to bug bounty programs — also offers services including penetration testing and attack surface management, as well as training to hackers to increase their skiilsets.

That functionality is both of a technical but also human nature.

Gerry jokingly describes Bugcrowd’s premise as “a dating service for people who break computers” but in more formal terms, it is built around a two-sided security marketplace: Bugcrowd crowdsources coders, who apply to join the platform by demonstrating their skills. The coders might be hackers who only work on freelance projects, or people who work elsewhere and pick up extra freelance work in their spare time. Bugcrowd then matches these coders up, based on those particular skills, with bounty programs that are in the works among clients. Those clients, meanwhile, range from other technology companies through to any enterprise or organization whose operations rely on tech to work.

In doing all this, Bugcrowd has been tapping into a couple of important trends in the technology industry.

Organizations continue to build more technology to operate, and that means more apps, more automations, more integrations and much more data is…

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Nearly 500K Intellihartx patients' data compromised in Clop … – SC Media

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Nearly 500K Intellihartx patients’ data compromised in Clop …  SC Media

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Hive demands £500k from Wootton Academy Trust in ransomware attack

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Russian-speaking ransomware-as-a-service gang Hive has reportedly demanded £500,000 from two sixth-form colleges in Bedfordshire, under threat of leaking stolen data online.

According to a report from security provider Recorded Future, parents of pupils at the two Wootton Academy Trust colleges have been contacted directly by members of Hive, warning that their children’s personal information would be leaked if the Trust fails to pay up.

However, the stolen data is so valuable that it may be sold on the dark web regardless of the Trust’s actions, Recorded Future told Tech Monitor.

Young people’s personal data is especially valuable to criminals. “It’s basically fresh data.” (Image by Clerkenwell / iStock)

The Trust’s executive principal Michael Gleeson confirmed the Hive ransomware attack in a letter to students and their parents. “I can now confirm that the Trust suffered a cyber incident and we are now in the process of putting in place a plan that will enable our IT system to be rebuilt.”

The Trust has informed the Information Commissioner’s Office and the police of the incident.

Hive ransomware attack on Wootton Academy Trust

The £500,000 ransom demand reflects the coverage of the Trust’s cyber insurance policy, which Hive found on its IT systems. “We are very well informed and precise in our operations, so we know that Wootton have cyber insurance that reaches £500k,” the gang said in its message to the parents.

In the past, this has been an effective tactic for ransomware groups, who have used details of their target’s cyber insurance policies to negotiate ransoms worth millions of pounds.

Now, though, cyber insurance policies rarely cover ransom payments, says Allan Liska, an intelligence analyst at Recorded Future. “A £500,000 cyber insurance policy does not mean that an insurance company will pay it,” he explains.

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“The number of insurance companies that will pay a ransom directly has…

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Pennsylvania county pays 500K ransom to DoppelPaymer ransomware

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DoppelPaymer

Delaware County, Pennsylvania has paid a $500,000 ransom after their systems were hit by the DoppelPaymer ransomware last weekend.

On Monday, Delaware County disclosed that they had taken portions of their computer network offline after discovering that their network was compromised.

“The County of Delaware recently discovered a disruption to portions of its computer network. We commenced an immediate investigation that included taking certain systems offline and working with computer forensic specialists to determine the nature and scope of the event. We are working diligently to restore the functionality of our systems,” the Delaware County alert stated.

The County stated that the Bureau of Elections and the County’s Emergency Services Department were not affected and are on a different network than the hacked systems.

Local media has stated that the ransomware operators had access to networks containing police reports, payroll, purchasing, and other databases. As part of the attack, the threat actors demanded a $500,000 ransom to receive a decryptor.

“Sources said the county is in the process of paying the $500,000 ransom as it’s insured for such attacks,” Philadelphia’s 6abc’s Action News reported.

DoppelPaymer gang behind attack

Since then, sources have told BleepingComputer that the DoppelPaymer ransomware gang was behind the attack and that Delaware County had paid the ransom.

DoppelPaymer dervices its name from BitPaymer, which shares a large portion of code, but has been improved over time with a threaded encryption process for faster operation.

DoppelPaymer is known to steal unencrypted files when performing their attacks. It is not known if this was done in the attack against Delaware County.

BleepingComputer was also told that the ransomware gang advised Delaware County to change all of their passwords and modify their Windows domain configuration to include safeguards from the Mimikatz program.

Mimikatz is an open-source application commonly used by ransomware gangs to harvest Windows domain credentials on a compromised network.

Mimikatz extracting NTLM hashes
Mimikatz extracting NTLM hashes
Source: Mimikatz Github page

Once the threat actors gain access to a Windows domain administrator…

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