Hackers: Fake or real?

What do the words Armada, DD4BC and Lizard Squad mean to you? Nothing? Well I’m afraid, it’s time they did. That’s because they are all hacking groups that have secured worldwide notoriety for making millions of dollars from ransomware, as many councils will know only too well – if they admit it or not.
It’s a simple business model: Send a ransom letter explaining that the cyber attack they’ve set to run on your network will stop if you pay a ransom of bitcoin. And for those who don’t have a bitcoin account, they even explain how you set one up.

These groups are famous for their attacks. And it’s tempting to pay the ransom and think that the problem will go away. That’s usually when things get worse. Rather then stop the attack, the hacking group will step it up causing havoc very quickly. And if you ignore the ransom request for £1m then things can escalate quickly, as Lincolnshire County Council found out when they were a target some months ago.

As you can imagine the efforts of these organised groups have got them into hot water and arrests have been made. Thankfully this effectively shut down groups like Lizard Squad at the end of last year.