Our reporter, Abuja with Stephen Ukandu (News/Features Editor)
Gaming giant, Bet9ja, says its website has been hacked.
The Management of Bet9ja disclosed this in a statement, pointing accusing fingers at the Russian Blackcat group.
Russian Blackcat had on many occasions been accused of carrying out several attacks on huge companies across the globe.
Ikengaonline checks revealed that the Russia-linked cybercrime gang, Blackcat, was behind the ransomware attacks that obstructed payments at some German filling stations earlier in January.
It was also gathered that hackers using a strain of ransomware known as “Black Cat” infected computers at Mabanaft GmbH and Oiltanking GmbH Group.
According to the statement, the hackers are already demanding ransom, but the gaming site insists it will not accept the conditions of the hacker group.
It appealed to its numerous customers to exercise patience as efforts were being intensified to fix the challenge.
The gaming giant had earlier acknowledged in a post that “user funds and winnings are safe.”
The statement obtained by Ikengaonline read in part: “The entire Bet9ja system has been under attack by the Russian Blackcat group who are famous for several attacks to huge companies in the world. It is a huge hacker attack by this Russian group, but our people are working from yesterday without stopping for a minute to restore all the services, but it is not easy.
“They are asking for ransom already, but we will never accept their conditions. it is important to let you know this so that we are all on the same page. They have hit us hard but of course they cannot kill us. We will stand our ground and come back even much stronger.
“Please do not be discouraged, we will surely restore things as soon as possible and provide update on the progress.”
Reports say this group has been aggressively recruiting affiliates from other ransomware groups and targeting big organisations in various parts of the world.
At the time of filing this report, the official website of Bet9ja was still down and inaccessible. Industry analysts believe that the attack may have caused the gaming company a loss of revenue running into millions over the two days it’s been out of business.
