REUTERS/Bridget Bennett/File Photo Acquire Licensing RightsSAN FRANCISCO, Nov 16 (Reuters) - The FBI warned organizations to guard against the Scattered Spider hacking group, which has breached dozens of American organizations over the past year, stealing their sensitive data for extortion.
The statement, issued jointly with the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, sheds new light into how these hackers operate.
The FBI and CISA urged critical infrastructure organisations to implement a series of security measures they recommended and urged victim organisations to share information about the hacks with the agencies.
Everything from a sample ransom note, communications with the hackers, their cryptocurrency wallet information, or samples of malicious files could be useful, they said.
"FBI and CISA do not encourage paying ransom as payment does not guarantee victim files will be recovered," they said, adding that ransom payments may embolden the hackers into going after more targets.
Persons:
Bridget Bennett, they've, Slack, CISA, Zeba Siddiqui, Nick Zieminski
Organizations:
MGM, MGM Resorts, REUTERS, FRANCISCO, FBI, MGM Resorts International, Caesars Entertainment, U.S, Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Security Agency, Microsoft, Microsoft Exchange, Thomson
Locations:
Las Vegas , Nevada, U.S, San Francisco