Corporate Travel Giant CWT Paid $4.5 Million in Ransom to Cyber Hackers: Reports
Photo Credit: Cyber hackers, like the one depicted in this photo illustration, made big demands of CWT. Adobe / Oleksii
Skift Take
Data breaches often go undetected for months or even years, so is this latest attack a new tactic the travel industry needs to prepare against?
It used to be hotel groups and airlines were the key targets of cyber attacks in travel. Now one of the biggest corporate travel agencies has reportedly paid out millions of dollars in bitcoin to hackers who held it ransom after a "cyber-incident."
With the intrigue of a Hollywood thriller, CWT paid out $4.5 million to hackers, according to a record of the ransom negotiations seen by Reuters, after they stole sensitive corporate files and said they had knocked 30,000 computers offline.
The attackers reportedly used a strain of ransomware called Ragnar Locker, which encrypts computer files and renders them unusable until the victim pays for access to
