14 DAY TRIAL // A hacker collective called Rex Mundi has leaked a large file that contains information they have stolen from the systems of AmeriCash Advance, a company that provides payday loans and cash advances.
Before making the data publicly available, the hackers contacted the firm and demanded the payment of $20,000 (16,000 EUR).
“For those who didn't follow the whole story, we are Rex Mundi, a group of hackers. We noticed last week that AmeriCash Advance had left a page completely unprotected on their server,” the hackers wrote next to the data dump.
“This page allowed anyone to access the following records. We offered AmeriCash Advance not to publish those records, for the applicants' sake, if they paid us USD $20,000. They didn't. Hence the fact that you are now reading this data.”
The leak consists only of names, email addresses, fund amounts, and partial social security numbers, but according to CNET, the company fears that the details may be used to launch phishing attacks.
AmeriCash Advance representatives admitted that on June 12 they received a blackmail fax in which the hackers demanded an initial payment of $15,000 (12,000 EUR).
“We immediately notified the appropriate authorities and promptly took steps to ensure that no other data could be accessed. We will not cave in to blackmail, and are cooperating fully with the authorities to protect our customers and bring these criminals to justice,” the company told CNET.
“The section of the system that the criminals hacked into was the automatic e-mail responder section, the part of the system that sends an auto-reply to an applicant that their application has been received,” the statement added.
In the meantime, impacted customers have been notified and the company continues to work with law enforcement in an attempt to unmask the hackers.
However, after seeing the company's statement, Rex Mundi argued that it wasn't the email responder system that was hacked, but a page that generated reports for the firm's affiliates.
As some of our readers probably already know, this is not the first time we are seeing this group in action. Back in May, we didn’t know the collective’s name, but we reported that they had blackmailed Dexia, a Belgian-French financial institution, calling the fee they demanded an “idiot tax.”
Now, after they’ve seen that AmeriCash Advance isn’t going to pay them, they’ve shifted their focus towards Taylor Lautner, the Twilight celebrity. The hackers claim that they’ve gained access to his email account and they plan on leaking its content if they don't get paid.