Piergiorgio Venuti
The data exfiltrated during a double extortion ransomware attack is not public. Let’s dispel a myth
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Introduction
Ransomware attacks are becoming more common and lucrative for cybercriminals. In particular, the “double extortion” variant involves not only encrypting the victim’s data, but also stealing and threatening to publish it online for ransom. It is commonly believed that stolen data is not actually disclosed publicly, but remains confined to the dark web. In reality, things are not like that.
What is the dark web
The dark web refers to that part of the internet whose contents are not indexed by standard search engines. To access the dark web you need to use specific browsers such as Tor, which make browsing anonymous by encrypting and routing traffic through multiple nodes. Thanks to the anonymity it guarantees, the dark web is often used for criminal activities, such as the sale of stolen data.
However, the dark web is not as dark and mysterious as it is believed. Software like Tor is free and easily accessible to everyone. As a result, even sensitive data of companies that have ended up on the dark web can easily be leaked, even publicly.
Cybergangs also often publish unencrypted
Contrary to common belief, many of the criminal organizations that manage ransomware attacks end up publishing the stolen data of the victims even publicly, as an additional tool to pressure to obtain the ransom payment.
The forums and sites used for these publications are often hosted on non-EU servers, where there are no legal consequences, and are easily accessible to anyone. For example, the Conti group, one of the most active in the ransomware world, regularly publishes exfiltrated data through its “Conti Leaks” site.
Even lesser-known ransomware groups end up posting stolen data samples on public forums, then posting the URL to the victim, to demonstrate that the threat of full disclosure is real.
These publications take place on sites accessible to anyone with an internet connection. It is not necessary to resort to the dark web to access the stolen data.
Because cybergangs publish data in the clear
There are mainly three reasons that drive ransomware operators to publish the stolen data also publicly, and not only on the dark web:
- Increase pressure on the victim: Publishing a sample of sensitive data is a powerful coercion tool to pressure the victim into paying to avoid full disclosure.
- Damage the image of the target: Cybergangs often aim to inflict as much damage as possible on the victims, as well as to obtain a ransom. The publication of the data damages the reputation of the affected organization.
- Advertising for your services: Showing the leaked data serves as proof of the effective capabilities of the ransomware group, allowing you to attract more customers for future attacks.
A million dollar business
Selling stolen data has become an extremely lucrative business for cybercriminals, second only to ransomware. Recent reports estimate that revenues from the sale of stolen data alone in 2021 netted hackers over $2 billion.
Sensitive company data can be sold for tens of thousands of euros on the dark web. But free sample posting further increases the destructive impact of the attack.
Conclusion: prevention is better than cure
The possibility that the data stolen by a ransomware attack will be publicly disclosed, and not only on the dark web, is therefore concrete and should not be underestimated. The consequences of such a data breach can be extremely serious for a company, causing reputational damage, legal fines and loss of intellectual property.
It therefore becomes crucial to invest in prevention, adopting modern security solutions such as SOC (Security Operation Center) platforms that monitor the corporate network 24 hours a day to identify and block attacks before hackers can steal or encrypt sensitive data.
In addition, advanced threat intelligence services such as those provided by companies such as Secure Online Desktop allow you to monitor the dark web to identify any stolen company data that is being offered for sale, to take immediate action and limit the damage.
Useful links:
Share
RSS
More Articles…
- From Secure Online Desktop to Cyberfero: rebranding of the leading cybersecurity company
- NIS: what it is and how it protects cybersecurity
- Advanced persistent threats (APTs): what they are and how to defend yourself
- Penetration Testing and MFA: A Dual Strategy to Maximize Security
- Penetration Testing: Where to Strike to Protect Your IT Network
- Ransomware: a plague that brings companies and institutions to their knees. Should you pay the ransom? Here is the answer.
- Why IT audit and log management are important for Cybersecurity
- Red Team, Blue Team and Purple Team: what are the differences?
Categories …
- Backup as a Service (18)
- Acronis Cloud Backup (11)
- Veeam Cloud Connect (4)
- Cloud Conference (3)
- Cloud CRM (1)
- Cloud Server/VPS (22)
- Conferenza Cloud (4)
- Cyberfero (15)
- ICT Monitoring (5)
- Log Management (2)
- News (25)
- ownCloud (4)
- Privacy (7)
- Security (203)
- Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) (8)
- Deception (4)
- Ethical Phishing (11)
- Netwrix Auditor (2)
- Penetration Test (11)
- Posture Guard (3)
- SOCaaS (65)
- Vulnerabilities (84)
- Web Hosting (15)
Tags
Unknown Feed
Full Disclosure
- [REVIVE-SA-2026-002] Revive Adserver Vulnerabilities June 5, 2026Posted by Matteo Beccati on Jun 04======================================================================== Revive Adserver Security Advisory REVIVE-SA-2026-002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ https://www.revive-adserver.com/security/revive-sa-2026-002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: 2026-06-03 Risk Level: Medium to High Applications affected: Revive Adserver Versions...
- CyberDanube Security Research 20260528-0 | Multiple Vulnerabilities in Multiple Vulnerabilities in Mennekes Amtron Series June 1, 2026Posted by Thomas Weber | CyberDanube via Fulldisclosure on May 31CyberDanube Security Research 20260528-0 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- title| Multiple Vulnerabilities product| Mennekes Amtron Series and Smart-T PnC vulnerable version| 5.22.3 fixed version| 5.33.11-21500 CVE number| CVE-2026-8979, CVE-2026-8980 impact| High homepage| https://www.mennekes.at/ found|...
- bmcweb (OpenBMC web server): four vulnerabilities — two unfixed, GHSA without a CVE June 1, 2026Posted by binreaper via Fulldisclosure on May 31Hi all, Posting a brief summary of a four-finding disclosure on bmcweb (the OpenBMC HTTP/Redfish web server), which ships in BMC firmware on most modern enterprise servers — Intel, IBM, HPE, NVIDIA, and various ODMs. Full timeline and analysis on the blog: https://binreaper.pages.dev/posts/2026-05-27-bmcweb-disclosure/ ## Why bmcweb matters A […]
- Re: Dovecot Security Advisory OXDC-2026-0002 May 26, 2026Posted by Noel Butler via Fulldisclosure on May 25So when is the fix for dovecot 2.3 source code due to be released? Since by your wording by not including the first detected versions, it must be assumed 2.3 is affected, and as no EOL has been published or announced for 2.3.x, and as 2.3 is […]
- SSRF in Anthropic mcp-server-fetch and Microsoft playwright-mcp — publicly disclosed via GitHub issues May 26, 2026Posted by outreach on May 25-----BEGIN SECURITY ADVISORY----- Title: Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) in Anthropic mcp-server-fetch and Microsoft playwright-mcp Author: Syed Anas Mohiuddin Date: May 25, 2026 CVSS: 7.5 (HIGH) — AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N References: Already public via GitHub issues (see below) == AFFECTED PRODUCTS == 1. Anthropic mcp-server-fetch (modelcontextprotocol/servers) All versions as of May...
- [SECURITY ADVISORY] CVE-2021-21735 - ZTE ZXHN H168N V3.5 Unauthenticated Admin Credential Leak May 26, 2026Posted by m.nageh on May 25-----BEGIN SECURITY ADVISORY----- Advisory ID: MONX-2021-001 CVE ID: CVE-2021-21735 Title: ZTE ZXHN H168N V3.5 - Unauthenticated Wizard Credential Disclosure to Full Admin Compromise Affected: ZTE ZXHN H168N V3.5 Date: 2026-05-20 Author: Mina Nageh Salalma (Monx Research) Contact: minanageh379 () gmail com Public URL:...
- [SECURITY ADVISORY] CVE-2026-34474 - ZTE H298A/H108N Unauthenticated Admin Credential Exposure May 26, 2026Posted by m.nageh on May 25-----BEGIN SECURITY ADVISORY----- Advisory ID: MONX-2026-003 CVE ID: CVE-2026-34474 Title: ZTE ZXHN H298A / H108N - Unauthenticated Admin Password & WLAN Credential Exposure Affected: ZTE ZXHN H298A 1.1, ZTE ZXHN H108N 2.6 (EOL; no patch planned) Date: 2026-05-20 Author: Mina Nageh Salalma (Monx Research) Contact: minanageh379 () gmail com Public […]
- [SECURITY ADVISORY] CVE-2026-34472 - ZTE ZXHN H188A V6 Authentication Bypass via Pre-Login Wizard May 26, 2026Posted by m.nageh on May 25-----BEGIN SECURITY ADVISORY----- Advisory ID: MONX-2026-002 CVE ID: CVE-2026-34472 Title: ZTE ZXHN H188A V6 - Authentication Bypass via Pre-Login Wizard Credential Leakage Affected: ZTE ZXHN H188A V6.0.10P2_TE, V6.0.10P3N3_TE Date: 2026-05-20 Author: Mina Nageh Salalma (Monx Research) Contact: minanageh379 () gmail com Public URL:...
- [SECURITY ADVISORY] CVE-2026-34473 - Unauthenticated DoS in 17+ ZTE Router Models (140K+ Devices) May 26, 2026Posted by m.nageh on May 25-----BEGIN SECURITY ADVISORY----- Advisory ID: MONX-2026-001 CVE ID: CVE-2026-34473 Title: Unauthenticated Denial of Service via Oversized POST Body in ZTE Router CGILua Parser Affected: 17+ ZTE ZXHN router models (~140,000 publicly exposed devices) CVSS Score: 7.5 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H) Date: 2026-05-20 Author: Mina Nageh Salalma (Monx Research) Contact: minanageh379 () gmail...
- Multiple vulnerabilities in Sparx Pro Cloud Server and Enterprise Architect May 26, 2026Posted by Adamczyk Blazej on May 25━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Multiple vulnerabilities in Sparx Pro Cloud Server and Enterprise Architect ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ General...
Customers
Twitter FEED
Recent activity
-
SecureOnlineDesktop
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes L'impatto crescente delle minacce informatiche, su sistemi operativi privati op… https://t.co/FimxTS4o9G
-
SecureOnlineDesktop
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes The growing impact of cyber threats, on private or corporate operating systems… https://t.co/y6G6RYA9n1
-
SecureOnlineDesktop
Tempo di lettura stimato: 6 minuti Today we are talking about the CTI update of our services. Data security is… https://t.co/YAZkn7iFqa
-
SecureOnlineDesktop
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes Il tema della sicurezza delle informazioni è di grande attualità in questo peri… https://t.co/tfve5Kzr09
-
SecureOnlineDesktop
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes The issue of information security is very topical in this historical period ch… https://t.co/TP8gvdRcrF
Newsletter
Products and Solutions
Partners
Cloud Models
News
- From Secure Online Desktop to Cyberfero: rebranding of the leading cybersecurity company May 6, 2024
- NIS: what it is and how it protects cybersecurity April 22, 2024
- Advanced persistent threats (APTs): what they are and how to defend yourself April 17, 2024
- Penetration Testing and MFA: A Dual Strategy to Maximize Security April 15, 2024
- Penetration Testing: Where to Strike to Protect Your IT Network March 25, 2024
Google Reviews
Davvero consigliata !!!!!
In particolare vorrei sottolineare la figura che piu’ racchiude e sintetizza le qualità della Secure Online Desktop , il suo AD Ing. Piergiorgio Venuti, professionista impagabile , sia dal punto di vista tecnico/organizzativo che soprattutto (e non dimeno) come persona , capace di gestire , risolvere e approcciare qualsivoglia attività/problematica, davvero un grande !!!!
Tempi veloci e staff preparato!
Ottima azienda, servizi molto utili, staff qualificato e competente. Raccomandata!read more
Ottimo supportoread more
E' un piacere poter collaborare con realtà di questo tiporead more
Un ottimo fornitore.
Io personalmente ho parlato con l' Ing. Venuti, valore aggiunto indubbiamente.read more
About
© 2024 Cyberfero s.r.l. All Rights Reserved. Sede Legale: via Statuto 3 - 42121 Reggio Emilia (RE) – PEC [email protected] Cod. fiscale e P.IVA 03058120357 – R.E.A. 356650 Informativa Privacy - Certificazioni ISO