With cybercrime increasing at a rapid speed, the case of Paytm Mall being hacked by a cybercrime group doesn’t come as a shocker. The e-commerce marketplace wing of Paytm was reportedly hacked by a team of skilled hackers named ‘John Wick‘.
According to the Online intelligence firm Cyble, the cybercrime group was able to gain unrestricted admittance to Paytm Mall‘s entire database with a little help from an insider. The breach of data will conceivably affect all accounts and related information at Paytm Mall. As of now, the volume of the data breached is not known.
It is being reported that these hackers got into the system using a backdoor/Admin and have now demanded a ransom in exchange for the data they have acquired. The cybercriminals asked for a payoff in the form of cryptocurrency summing up to 10 ETH (roughly Rs. 3.12 lakh) which they will soon receive from the Paytm Mall. The e-commerce firm, however, denied these reports and said that it has not located any security failures in their system.
Global Cyber intelligence agency Cyble shared an official update on the matter and said, “In regards to the messages forwarded to us by source, the perpetrator claimed that the hack happened due to an insider at Paytm Mall. However, the claims are not verified but it could be possible.”
They further revealed that their trusted sources shared a few messages where the Cybercriminals have claimed that they have received the ransom payment from the Paytm mall as well.
The team further added that leaking data when an organization fails to meet the hacker’s demands is a known technique deployed by several cybercrime groups, including ransomware operators. “Currently, we are unaware that the ransom was paid,” they added.
A Paytm Mall spokesperson addressed the issue and said that they want to assure everyone that all the user and company’s data, is completely safe and secure. The spokesperson further said that the team has looked into the matter of a possible hack and data breach, but have found that these are absolutely false.
He assured that the organization invests heavily in data security and also has a Bug Bounty program, under which we reward responsible disclosure of any security risks. “We expansively work with the security research community and resolve security anomalies with utmost safety,” he added.
Talking about John Wick, this is not the first attack made by this malicious group, It is known for stealing the database of many companies under the pretense of assisting them in fixing bugs in their system and then demanding for ransom in many cases.