From threats to apology, hackers pull child data offline after public backlash www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news…

Last week we yelled at some “hackers” that threatened parents after stealing data from their children’s nursery. This followed a BBC report that a group calling itself “Radiant” claimed to have stolen sensitive data related to around 8,000 children from nursery chain Kido, which operates in the UK, US, China, and India.

To prove their possession of the data, the criminals posted samples on their darknet website, including pictures and profiles of ten children. They then issued a ransom demand to Kido, threatening to release more sensitive data unless they were paid. A few days later, they added profiles of another ten children and threatened to keep going until Kido paid their ransom demand. The group also published the private data of dozens of employees including names, addresses, National Insurance numbers, and contact details. The criminals then reportedly contacted parents directly with threatening phone calls whilst pushing to get their ransom paid.

But after massive pushback from the general public and some prominent members of the malware community, the attackers initially blurred the children’s images but left the data online. Soon after, they pulled everything offline and issued an apology.