Criminals offer correspondent money to penetrate the BBC

Like many things in the world of mysterious cyber crime, the threat from the inside is a very little thing of people with experience.

Even fewer people want to talk about it.

But I got a unique and disturbing experience on how to benefit from infiltrators from the informed when I recently made a criminal gang.

“If you are interested, we can offer you 15 % of any ransom payment if we give us access to your computer.”

This was the message that I received from the blue color from a person called Syndicate, who installed me in July to the encrypted chat application signal.

I had no idea about the identity of this person, but he immediately knew what it was.

I offered me part of a large amount of money if I helped Internet criminals access to the BBC through the laptop.

They will steal data or install malware, carry the employer on a ransom, and I will secretly get a reduction.

I heard stories about this type of things.

In fact, just a few days before the unwanted message, news appeared from Brazil that the information technology factor there was arrested for selling the login details to the infiltrators that the police say they led to the loss of $ 100 million (74 million pounds) for the banking victim.

I decided to play with the union after taking advice from the BBC editor. I was excited to find out how criminals make these shaded deals with employees who are likely to be treacherous at a time when electronic attacks around the world become more influential and destroyed on daily life.

SYN, whose name changed in the middle of the conversation, told me that I would like to be interested but you need to know how to do it.

They explained that if I give them my login details and a safety code, they will penetrate the BBC and then blackmail the company to get a ransom in Bitcoin. I will be in a line of part of that payment.

They raised their offer.

“We are not sure how much the BBC pays, but what if you take 25 % of the final negotiation as we extract 1 % of the total BBC’s revenues? You will not need to work again.”

SYN estimated that their team could demand a ransom in tens of millions if they succeed in infiltrating the company.

The British Broadcasting Corporation has publicly not taken a position on whether or not it was paid to the infiltrators, but the advice from the National Crime Agency does not pay.

However, infiltrators continued the stadium.

Syn said that I will be in the millions line. “We’ll delete this chat for you, never exist,” they insisted.

The infiltrator claimed that they achieved a lot of success in amazing deals with those who are familiar with previous attacks.

The names of two companies that were hacked this year were shared as examples of the date of concluding a deal – a health care company in the United Kingdom and an emergency service provider in the United States.

“You will be surprised by the number of employees who will provide us with access,” Sen said.

SYN said he was “a manager to reach the electronic crime group called Medusa. He claimed to be West and the only English speaker in the gang.

Midosa is a ransom process as a service. Any criminal subsidiary company can subscribe to its platform and use it to penetrate the organizations.

According to a research report issued by the cyberspace security company, Midosa officials are believed to be working outside Russia or one of its allied states.

“The group avoids targeting organizations within Russia and the Commonwealth of independent countries [its activity is predominantly] In the dark web forums in Russian. “

He proudly sent me a link to US General Warning about Midosa Which was put in March. The American electronic authorities said that during the four years in which the group was active, it has penetrated “more than 300 victims.”

SYN insisted that they were serious about concluding a deal to sell the keys of the Kingdom of my company secretly in exchange for a large salary day.

You never know who you are talking about, so I asked Syn to prove it. She suggested: “You may be children tampering or someone tries to motivate me.”

They answered with a link entitled Darknet for Medusa and invited me to contact them through the group’s tox – a safe messaging service that the Internet criminals love.

Syn was very patience and intensified pressure on me to respond.

They have sent a link to the Midosa recruitment page at an exclusive e -crime forum that urges me to start the insurance process of 0.5 Bitcoin (about $ 55,000) in a deposit order.

This effectively guaranteed this money to me as soon as my login details are delivered.

“We are not deceiving or joking – we have no purpose from the media only for wisdom for money and money only and one of our main managers wanted me to contact you.”

It seems that they chose me because they assumed that I was technically thinking and with high -level access to the BBC information systems (I don’t). I am still completely not sure that SyN knew that I was online correspondence, not online security or information technology employee.

They asked a lot of questions about the BBC IT network that I did not answer even if I knew. Then they sent a complex mix of the computer icon and asked me to run it as a matter on my laptop and inform what he said. They wanted to find out what is internal access to information technology that I had to start planning their next steps once inside.

At this stage, I was talking to SYN for three days, and I decided that I had taken it away enough and needed some additional advice from the BBC information security experts.

It was Sunday morning, so my plan was to speak to my team the next morning.

So I stopped for time. But Syn was upset.

“When can you do this? I’m not sick,” the infiltrator said.

“I think you don’t want to live on the beach in the Bahamas?” Click.

Give me a final date in midnight on Monday. Then run out of patience.

My phone began to overcome bilateral ratification marks. The windows from the BBC login application were asking me to check that I was trying to log in to the BBC account.

When I carried my phone in my hands, the screen fills with a new request every minute or so.

I knew exactly what this was – Hacker technology known as the MFA bombing. The attackers are bombing a victim of these pop -up windows by trying to reset the password or log in from an unusual device.

Ultimately, the victim’s presses accept either by mistake or to hide the pop -up windows. This is famous for how Uber was hacked in 2022.

He was running on the recipient.

The criminals have relatively removed the professional conversation from the safety of my chat application on my main phone screen. It seemed to be equivalent to criminals who knocked on the power of the front door.

I was confused to change the tactic, but I was very careful to open my conversations with them in a state of mistake. This would give infiltrators immediate access to the BBC accounts.

The safety system will not have been a sign that it was harmful because it seemed to have a regular login request or the password reset from me. After that, it was possible that infiltrators would start searching for access to sensitive or important BBC systems.

As a reporter and not a information technology worker, I do not have a high -level access to the BBC, but it was still worried and intended effectively that my phone is not useful.

I called the BBC information security team and as a precaution, we agreed to completely separate the BBC. There are no email messages, no Intrant, no internal tools, no privileges.

A quiet message came strangely from the infiltrators later that evening.

“The team apologizes. We were testing your BBC login page and we are very sorry if this causes any problems.”

I explained that I am now closed from the BBC and disturbed. SYN insisted that the deal was still present if you wanted. But after I did not want a few days, they deleted the signal account and disappeared.

I finally returned to the BBC, albeit with additional protection for my account. And with the additional experience in being inside the threat attack from the inside.

An insight into the constantly advanced tactics of cyber criminals and highlights a complete room for risks on organizations that I really could not have until I was at the recipient.