Mogilevich hacker group claims it breached Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs

Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs has denied suffering a cyber attack after a ransomware group claimed that it infiltrated the department’s internal network and stole 7 gigabytes of data.

 

On February 27, a previously-unknown criminal group going by the name Mogilevich announced that it breached the internal networks of Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs and listed it as a victim on the dark web.

 

 

The group claimed to be in possession of 7 gigabytes of data stolen from the Department of Foreign Affairs’s network and said it gave the department until March 3 to meet its ransom demand.

 

While the hacker group did not share any evidence of the data stolen from the department, they titled the stolen data dump as “Documents”.

 

“Data is also for sale! If you are an employee of the company or someone who would like to buy the data, click on me,” the group said.

 

The Irish foreign affairs ministry said that on 27 February, the country’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) notified the department of a potential cybersecurity incident. Immediately, it launched an investigation to verify the claims of the hacker group but has not been able to find any evidence of a network breach so far.

In a statement shared with the media, the department said, “At this point, there is no evidence of any breach of DFA ICT security infrastructure.” It added that it is working closely with the “NCSC to establish whether this allegation is authentic.”

 

“The Department, in conjunction with the NCSC, will continue its investigation and, should any breach be identified, will address any issues that arise around information held by the Department,” DFA added.

 

On the same day, Mogilevich also added North Carolina-based American video game and software developer Epic Games as a victim on its data leak site. The group claimed to have infiltrated the internal network of the American video game developer and exfiltrated 189 GB of data.

 

According to Cyber Daily, the hacker group claimed to be in possession of several emails, passwords, payment information from the company’s customers, and even source code data. The cyber criminal group gave a deadline of March 4 for the company to meet its ransom demands and if it fails to do so, Mogilevich will publish the stolen data.

 

Epic Games also announced that there is no evidence of a network intrusion. “We are investigating but there is currently zero evidence that these claims are legitimate. Mogilievich has not contacted Epic or provided any proof of the veracity of these allegations,” an Epic Games spokesperson said.

 

“When we saw these allegations, which were a screenshot of a dark web webpage in a Tweet from a third party, we began investigating within minutes and reached out to Mogilevich for proof.

 

“Mogilevich has not responded. The closest thing we have seen to a response is this Tweet, where they allegedly ask for $15k and “proof of funds” to hand over the purported data,” they added.