'Payment sent': Travel giant CWT pays US$4.5m ransom to cybe...

LONDON, July 31 -- US travel management firm CWT paid US$4.5 million (RM19 million) this week to hackers who stole reams of sensitive corporate files and said they had knocked 30,000 computers offline, according to a record of the ransom negotiations seen by Reuters. The attackers used a strain of ransomware called Ragnar Locker, which encrypts computer files and renders them unusable until the victim pays for access to be restored. The ensuing negotiations between the hackers and a CWT representative remained publicly accessible in an online chat group, providing a rare insight into the fraught relationship between cyber criminals and their corporate victims. CWT, which posted revenues of US$1.5 billion last year and says it represents more than a third of companies on the S&P 500 US stock index, confirmed the attack but declined to comment on the details of what it said was an ongoi...