A group of hackers dubbed as “The Dark Overlord” released a sampling of more than 18,000 confidential legal documents related to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that it claimed to have stolen from insurers Hiscox Syndicates Ltd., Lloyds of London, and Silverstein Properties.
The hacking group, which reportedly demanded between $5,000 and $2 million in Bitcoin for documents depending on their security importance, posted a 10GB archive of the documents on Pastebin on Dec. 31. The group also posted on Twitter, and the posts have since been taken down and the user suspended.
“This story isn’t about insurance litigation so much as it’s about highly sensitive SCI and SSI that details security procedures, defence operations, law enforcement investigations, evidence materials, and more that was never publicly released due to its sensitive nature,” the Dark Overlord said in a tweet, according to Cyberscoop.
The Dark Overlord, which became infamous for infiltrating Netflix in 2017, said that the released documents are a sampling and that they also breached federal agencies including the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Aviation Administration.
“We’re doing this to fuel our Bitcoin wallets,” the group told Forbes.
The group told Cyberscoop in an email that it is negotiating “with particular parties who are involved in the documents.” Lloyds of London denied that its systems were compromised, while Hiscox acknowledged the data breach last April.
The Dark Overlord hackers release documents allegedly tied to 9/11 civil lawsuits https://t.co/tDjk3EjOCg by @jeffstone500 pic.twitter.com/587xm8CqUC
— CyberScoop (@CyberScoopNews) January 2, 2019
