The total number of recent victims from the online extortion ring has reached 121 organizations, according to Brett Callow, whose cybersecurity company Emsisoft helps companies respond to digital shakedown attempts. In 2021, Ukrainian authorities announced the arrests of six people tied to cl0p, but it's not clear that they were core members of the group, which continued to hack victims. Plundering file transfer protocols has become increasingly popular as hackers shift from encrypting data to simply stealing files and threatening to release them unless a ransom is paid. Many of the organizations stress that the target of the hack is the file transfer service, not their systems. The FBI said it was "aware of and investigating the recent exploitation of a MOVEit vulnerability by malicious ransomware actors."

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Persons: Brett Callow, encrypting, TrendMicro, didn't, Cl0p, Emsisoft, Charles Carmakal, Raphael Satter, Christopher Bing, James Pearson, Cynthia Osterman Organizations: University of California, Siemens Energy, Abbvie Inc, Schneider, Publicly, Sony, Shell PLC, Government, U.S . Energy Department, Alphabet Inc, FBI, Thomson Locations: Los Angeles, Russia, Washington, London