Scammers Pretend to Be DarkSide and Demand Ransom, But Fail to Convince Victims

Some pranksters are trying to pass themselves off as the notorious cybercriminal group DarkSide, demanding 100 bitcoins in ransom from companies. According to experts at Trend Micro, the scammers have targeted organizations in the food industry and energy sector.

Interestingly, the criminals’ campaign has not yielded any results so far, as the specified cryptocurrency wallet has not received any payments. The scammers contact several new victims every day, either by sending an email to the company’s official address or by pasting the same message into the contact form on the company’s website.

The scammers claim to have hacked the organization’s servers and gained access to confidential data, but they provide no evidence to support their claims. Apparently, they are hoping that the DarkSide name alone will scare victims into paying. However, their approach is not very convincing, as none of the targeted companies have sent any ransom to the provided wallet.

Trend Micro specialists noted that, compared to the real DarkSide group, these scammers are acting unprofessionally. “Members of the DarkSide group always provide proof of their successful attacks so that the victim has no doubt their data has fallen into the wrong hands,” emphasized Cedric Pernet from Trend Micro.