Notorious hacker group John Wick hacks into companies and demand ransom

guest · Aug 30, 2020

Massive data breach reported at Paytm Mall
August 30, 2020
https://www.thehindubusinessline.co...ch-reported-at-paytm-mall/article32478835.ece

A massive data breach has been reported at Paytm Mall by global cyber security firm Cyble.

According to the report, hacker group John Wick was able to gain unrestricted access to the entire database of Paytm Mall and has demanded ransom in exchange of the information. It has been able to gain unrestricted access to their entire databases, the report said.

“We would like to assure that all user, as well as company data, is completely safe and secure. We have noted and investigated the claims of a possible hack and data breach, and these are absolutely false. [...]” the spokesperson said.
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According to the report, the group has demanded 10 ETH, equivalent to $ 4,000 from Paytm Mall as ransom.

“One of the tactics used by this group is ‘to act’ as a grey-hat hacker and offer help to companies or victims to fix their bugs. Some of their previous targets include Zee5, SquareYards, Stashfin, Sumo Payroll, Square Capital, i2ifunding, e27 and many others,” Cyble said in its report.
The notorious cybercrime group John Wick has in the past too broken into many Indian companies and has demanded ransom from them.
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Cyble: Paytm Group Suffers a Massive Data Breach – Paytm Mall Hacked and Ransom Demanded

Background of the actor: “John Wick” is the same notorious group or actor who broke into multiple India companies, and collected ransoms from various organizations. The actor has other aliases such as “South Korea”, “HCKINDIA”.

Some of their previous targets include Zee5, SquareYards, Stashfin, Sumo Payroll, Square Capital, i2ifunding, e27 and many others. The actor / group typically operates from 1:30 PM UTC to 5:30 PM UTC (or 7:30 PM to 11:30 PM IST).
On this instance, it is about a massive data breach at Paytm Mall
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On this instance, the tactics and previous trends of “John Wick” actor/group is close to “CyberCrime Robinhood” [a metaphor] – who take money from the victims and still leaks the information to cybercriminals.
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guest · Sep 3, 2020

India's CNN-News18 allegedly hacked to refute PayTM hacking claims
September 3, 2020
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ne...egedly-hacked-to-refute-paytm-hacking-claims/

A hacking group claims to have breached India's CNN-News18 news site to use it to refute claims that they hacked PayTM Mall earlier this week, BleepingComputer has learned.

A hacker group that goes by the names "John Wick" and "Korean Hackers" have provided BleepingComputer with information on the hacking of the Indian Prime Minister's Twitter account and the online systems of popular Indian news channel, News18.
This same group had previously hacked the video-on-demand service ZEE5 and defaced multiple websites, seeking nothing but a "10 Ethereum 'donation' for their help."
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And so the story begins...
In August, "John Wick" emailed BleepingComputer to refute a report Cyble had published that attributed a PayTM Mall breach to the hacker group.

In a paradoxical series of events, determined to assert their innocence regarding the PayTM Mall, "John Wick" hacked the Twitter account of Indian Prime Minister Modi, telling the world they weren't the ones behind PayTM hacks.

"There is no other intention to hack this account. Recently fake news of our name saying PayTM mall [was] hacked by us. So we have sent email to all news publishers in India [that] it’s not us, no one replied, so we decided to post something," read one of the tweets published from the PM's verified Twitter account.
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Furthermore, "John Wick" has provided BleepingComputer with additional information.
These images demonstrate the hackers may have hacked the Indian news channel, News18's systems and sent out push notifications to its subscribers to deny their involvement in PayTM hacks.
[...]
However, in trying to assert their innocence by competence, they may have breached many more systems and become criminally complicit—all to disprove one allegation of having hacked PayTM.
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guest · Sep 8, 2020

Mystery surrounds alleged Paytm Mall hack, as security firm hit by legal threat
September 8, 2020
https://grahamcluley.com/mystery-su...ll-hack-as-security-firm-hit-by-legal-notice/

According to media reports, India’s leading online shopping app has sent a legal notice to a US security firm demanding that they stop spreading “false” claims that it has been hacked.

Indian financial newspaper Mint says that Paytm Mall has sent the legal notice to Atlanta-based Cyble Inc, which at the end of last month published a blog post (archived here) claiming that the Paytm Group had suffered a “massive data breach” after a hacking group known as “John Wick” had uploaded unauthorised code: [...]
The blog post clearly wasn’t appreciated by Paytm Mall, which has denied that it has suffered any security breach.
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In its legal notice to Cyble, Paytm Mall gives Cyble one week to issue a public statement saying that its blog post was inaccurate, or it will take the matter to court.
To add an extra twist to the story [...] A claim that they were the “John Wick” hacking group, and that they had *not* hacked Paytm Mall.

Has Cyble made a mistake? Has Paytm Mall been hacked or not? Will we eventually see a data breach notification from Paytm Mall or will Cyble remove its blog post?
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guest · Aug 1, 2022

A 2020 Data Breach That Continues To Remain An Unsolved Mystery
Over 3.4 million users’ data is up for sale in what was alleged to be a data breach at Paytm Mall. But now we don’t know whose data is it
August 1, 2022

In 2020, a cybersecurity firm alleged a massive data breach at Paytm Mall, but this was firmly denied by the company back then. Fast forward two years to July 26 2022 and Firefox began notifying affected users that the breach has been verified based on data provided by Have I Been Pwned, a website that allows people to check whether their personal data has been compromised by data breaches.

Paytm once again doggedly denied any breach. A few days later, on July 29, Have I Been Pwned walked back on its claims and marked the data leak as “fabricated,” meaning the data did not come from Paytm.
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The case continues to remain interesting because there is a database of leaked data out there with sensitive personal information of over 3 million people. Where did this data come from and why was there a strong correlation to the data submitted by Paytm Mall customers remains a mystery.
A Timeline of Events
August 2022: Cyble reports Paytm Mall data breach, Paytm denies [...]
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July 26 2022: Firefox starts notifying affected users after Have I Been Pwned confirmed breach
Mozilla Firefox Monitor verified and added the breach to its database on July 26, 2022, and began notifying affected customers shortly thereafter.
July 27, 2022: Paytm denies breach once again
As the affected customers brought up the issue on Twitter, Paytm Mall denied the breach, noting:
July 29, 2022: Have I Been Pwned marks the breach as “fabricated”
“Further investigation into the data concluded that the breach was fabricated and did not originate from Paytm,” Have I Been Pwned noted on its website on July 29. Troy Hunt explained that Paytm’s infosec team reached out to him and they had a chat about the authenticity of the data, after which they “collectively believe it’s fabricated” for the following reasons: [...]
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