Dark Overlord wished everyone a Happy New Year by threatening and then releasing 9/11 related insurance and legal documents stolen from law firms like Hiscox Syndicates Ltd, Lloyds of London, and Silverstein Properties. These firms handled insurance claims related to September 11 cases. The group has held these firms ransom and although the firm paid the initial ransom the group said the firms broke their agreement by reporting to law enforcement.
The Dark Overload in a Pastebin post (since deleted) posted on New Year’s Eve stated they were
“welcoming 2019 with open arms and a big announcement”.
They further stated the information released would include:
“emails, retainer agreements, non-disclosure agreements, settlements, litigation strategies, liability analysis, defence formations, collection of expert witness testimonies, testimonies, communications with government officials in countries all over the world, voice mails, dealings with the FBI, USDOJ, DOD, and more, confidential communications”
The Dark Overlord motivated by money and the public on Twitter (since deleted) also posted:
“We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: we’re financially motivated, and you (the public) has spoken to us in our language (internet money, specifically Bitcoin),” and posted “many answers about 9.11 conspiracies through our 18,000 secret documents leak”.
After threatening to release the thousands of documents, the group released 10GB of the stolen documents on January 2nd, 2019, saying they planned to:
“release each layer of damaging documents that are filled with new truths, never before seen”. Their tiered plan includes five layers of information from the least scandalous to layer five revealing powerful and cogent documents. The ransom must be paid in BitCoin for about $2 million, about 5,000 for each document. Each layer has a higher demand of BitCoin payment. The 10 GB released included encrypted documents, but the group threatened to released the decryption keys if the ransom fee was not paid.”
Saying in the extortion note:
“Pay the fuck up, or we’re going to bury you with this. If you continue to fail us, we’ll escalate these releases by releasing the keys, each time a Layer is opened, a new wave of liability will fall upon you”
The group has since received several payment to their bitcoin wallet, up to 17 transactions have occurred and about 3.27 BTC has been received, which equals around $12,500 dollars. The Dark OverLord also began to sell the documents on the Twitter handle, @tdo_h4ck3rs; this account has since been suspended.
Since the groups accounts were suspended from Twitter, Reddit, and Pastebin, they have begun to upload the documents to Steemit. The group has become very angered that the ransoms have not been paid yet and commented saying one can save the firms if the ransom is not paid.
If you have been victim to a ransomware attack, contact LIFARS immediately.
