US hard liquor giant Brown-Forman is the latest high-profile victim of ransomware criminals. Even if the company’s name doesn’t ring a bell, some of its products are well-known to spirits drinkers worldwide: Brown-Forman is a multi-billion dollar business that owns Jack Daniel’s whiskey, Finlandia vodka, and other global brands. It’s a multi-billion dollar business, headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky – a US state that’s famous for American whiskey, better known as bourbon – and you can see why today’s big-money ransomware crooks might go after a company of that size and sort. According to the business media site Bloomberg, which claims to have received an anonymous tip-off from the crooks behind the attacks, the ransomware crooks involved are the infamous REvil or Sodinokibi gang. The REVil crew make up one of what you might call a “new wave” of ransomware operators who practice three-stage attacks that end in double-barrelled blackmail: First, they break into a victim’s network and...
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