German multinational retailer Mediamarkt has reportedly been hit by a Hive ransomware attack, according to RetailDetail, which cites Dutch news channel RTL as the source of the news. Initially, the hackers demanded $240 million. However, later they lowered the ransom to $50 million in bitcoin (EXANTE: Bitcoin) to decipher files.
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While the cyberattack affected almost all European divisions of the retailer, the outlets of Mediamarkt remain open with only some computer systems that have become inaccessible. A spokesperson for Mediamarkt told BleepingComputer that the retailer became the target of a cyberattack.
"The company immediately informed the relevant authorities and is working at full speed to identify the affected systems and repair any damage caused as quickly as possible. In the stationary stores, there may currently be limited access to some services," the spokesperson said.
In August this year, New Cooperative, an alliance of farmers which sells corn and soy products, also faced a ransomware attack from a Russian cybercrime group BlackMatter. The bad actors threatened to release New Cooperative's proprietary business data (a terabyte of the cooperative's data, including the source code to its soil-mapping technology) if it fails to pay $5.9 million in cryptocurrencies by Sept. 25.
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