Security News > 2023 > January > LockBit: Sorry about the SickKids ransomware, not sorry about the rest

Notorious ransomware gang LockBit "Formally apologized" for an extortion attack against Canada's largest children's hospital that the criminals blamed on a now-blocked affiliate group, and said it published a free decryptor for the victim to recover the files.

"The partner who attacked this hospital violated our rules, is blocked and is no longer in our affiliate program," LockBit reportedly said on its leak site.

"Upon learning of this incident, we immediately activated the hospital's incident management command center and launched an investigation to determine the nature and scope of the incident," according to a December 19 update on the hospital's website.

"SickKids has not made a ransomware payment," the hospital added.

"LockBit were not so charitable when demanding $10k from a hospital in a low-income country nor when dealing with a French hospital," tweeted Emsisoft threat analyst Brett Callow.

More recently, LockBit claimed to have stolen more than 15TB of data from the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles, and threatened to release the files if the affordable housing agency doesn't pay up.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/01/04/lockbit_sickkids_ransomware/