Travelex, the international foreign exchange firm is experiencing a global blackout on its online currency exchange services following the cyber attack. The firm is currently unable to serve its services to thousands of its customers efficiently and meantime hackers are demanding ransom in cryptocurrencies.

Hackers are likely fond of Cryptocurrencies

The incident was identified on January 2nd and hackers are reportedly holding Travelex’s system and demanding cryptocurrency to return the access. Consequently, the staff at Travelex is currently using paper and pen to perform certain activities. It is stated that the firm offers its foreign exchange services for customers of leading banks including Barclays, HSBC, Virgin Money and other banking avenues of British retailers Tesco and Sainsbury.

However, it isn’t the only or the first incident in the crypto industry, perhaps, this is a new case in 2020. In another report, it was disclosed that the intrusion was discovered on December 31 and upon discovery, the company took all systems offline as a part of a precautionary measure. More so, the company said that;

“To date, the company can confirm that whilst there has been some data encryption, there is no evidence that structured personal customer data has been encrypted. Whist Travelex does not yet have a complete picture of all the data that has been encrypted, there is still no evidence to date that any data has been exfiltrated,”

The irony is that attackers claimed they have downloaded 5 GB of sensitive customer data including customer’s date of birth, national insurance numbers alongside their credit card information. Furthermore, the hacker notes that as soon as they receive the payment they will delete the data and restore them the entire network.

“The deadline for doubling the payment is two days. Then another seven days and the sale of the entire base, said hackers”

In contrast, on the part of Travelex, there is no evidence of the breach of customer data. Besides, customer’s travel money is in limbo due to cyber-attack. Consequently, banking partners including Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Lloyds and Barclays are issuing the statement, stating that they are unable to accept any travel money. An RBS representative issued an apology statement, noting that;

“We are currently unable to accept any travel money orders either online, in branch or by telephone due to issues with our travel-money supplier, Travelex”

In a nutshell, the employees of Travelex who requested to be anonymous told reporters that the entire incident is partly caused by the lack of real leadership and communication within the internal management.