A group of hackers is demanding $42 million from a high-profile law firm, saying that if they aren’t paid, they will release sensitive documents about the firm’s famous clients. The group made good on their word Sunday by issuing 169 hacked emails that discuss President Donald Trump .
The cybergang REvil hacked into a law firm that has reportedly worked on behalf of clients such as Lady Gaga, Mariah Carey, Bruce Springsteen, Bette Midler, U2, Nicki Minaj, Drake, Priyanka Chopra, Madonna, and Donald Trump, as Forbes reports.
The group has already released documents related to Lady Gaga on the dark web and yesterday threatened to make the president their next target.
“The next person we’ll be publishing is Donald Trump,” they said, “There’s an election race going on, and we found a ton of dirty laundry on time. Mr. Trump, if you want to stay president, poke a sharp stick at the guys, otherwise you may forget this ambition forever.”
Grubman, Shire, Meiselas and Sacks refused to pay the ransom, issuing a statement that they would not comply with the group’s request, as The Inquisitr previously reported. The FBI then classified the hackers as cyber-terrorists and their actions as terrorism, a move that Forbes suggests could have pushed them into releasing the documents.
One expert said that this is the first time that they know of that a ransomware attack has been classified as an act of terrorism and would force the group’s hand into releasing the documents, since negotiating with them would now be considered a violation of federal law.
Shortly after, the group released the first batch of documents relating to Trump, which they call “harmless.”
“We read the position of the authorities. Declare this an act of terrorism. Your position is your choice. This will not affect our work in any way,” the group said in response.
“Mr. Lawyer says that Donald has never been their client. And he says that we are bluffing,” REvil continued. “The first part, with the most harmless information, we will post here.”
Many of the messages don’t appear to be related to Trump at all and use the word “trump” as a verb, rather than referring to the president, suggesting that the group did a search through the documents they obtained for the word.
Other messages only mention Trump tangentially.
But the group warns that they have more information and will release it unless the celebrities themselves buy it from them at an auction. Otherwise, they say, the information will be released to the highest bidder.
