From threats to apology, hackers pull child data offline after public backlash

According to Malwarebytes, a group calling itself “Radiant” claimed to have stolen sensitive data relating to around 8,000 children from nursery chain Kido, which operates in the UK, US, China and India. To prove possession, the criminals posted samples on their darknet site, including pictures and profiles of ten children, and issued a ransom demand to Kido.

A few days later they added profiles of another ten children and threatened to continue publishing more data until the ransom was paid, also exposing names, addresses, National Insurance numbers and other contact details of dozens of employees. After massive public backlash, they initially blurred the children’s images but left the data online; they then pulled everything offline and issued an apology, claiming to have deleted all the child data. One of the cybercriminals told the BBC: “All child data is now being deleted. No more remains and this can comfort parents.”