Ransomware attacks are becoming increasingly common. However, victims should be cautious when approaching companiesthat claim to deal with such incidents. An investigation has revealed that one such company, based in the UK, is paying hackers to restore stolen data and demanding a large sum of money from customers.
The company, called Red Mosquito Data Recovery, specializes in “rescuing” systems infected with ransomware, and has received excellent reviews from happy customers.
However, according to ProPublica, Red Mosquito's services are a scam. A researcher from Emsisoft took it a step further, using different email that supposedly belonged to the victim and the hacker. He then contacted Red Mosquito as a victim seeking help with a server that had been hit by an alleged ransomware.
"I don't have backups but I don't want to pay these scammers," the researcher wrote to Red Mosquito.
Red Mosquito responded that it was certain that the server files would be recovered. However, the company apparently contacted the hackers two minutes later, with a message that read: “How much do you want for the decryption?”
As a hacker, the researcher initially demanded $1,200 in Bitcoin, but Red Mosquito only wanted to pay $500. The researcher replied: “$900. Otherwise say bye bye to the data.”.
The next morning, Red Mosquito sent an email to the victim (researcher) saying: “We are pleased to confirm that we can recover your encrypted files .”
The cost is $3,950, which is four times more than the ransom.
Red Mosquito isn't the first company to promise to help its customers recover their files using sophisticated methods while paying hackers. Last month, ProPublica published a report about two companies that paid hackers and demanded large sums of money from customers.
Paying hackers is not a solution to the problem. On the contrary, it perpetuates it by encouraging hackers to continue their attacks. According to the FBI, ransomware attacks resulted in $3.6 million in losses last year.
Emsisoft also revealed that some of the companies dealing with ransomware attacks were charging their customers large amounts of money while using free tools to recover encrypted data.
Emsisoft is an antivirus solution provider that offers free decryption tools that anyone can download.
