The FBI served a globally recognized hacking group a dose of their own medicine and shut the network down.
The government infiltrated a ransomware gang called Hive and thwarted a $130 million ransomware demand that impacted over 300 people. News about the take down leaked early Thursday after a message from Hive's website read "The Federal Bureau of Investigation seized this site as part of a coordinated law enforcement action taken against Hive Ransomware."
German Federal Criminal Police and the Dutch National High Tech Crime Unit were also involved in the effort and seized Hive's servers.
"Last night, the Justice Department dismantled an international ransomware network responsible for extorting and attempting to extort hundreds of millions of dollars from victims in the United States and around the world," U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
The Justice Department said Hive has targeted over 1,500 victims in over 80 countries over the years and racked up over $100 million.
No arrests have been made in connection with the takedown but Garland said the investigation is ongoing and to "stay tuned."
Some of the targeted victims in the thwarted attack include a Texas school district, which the group was set to demand $5 million, and a Louisiana hospital that would have forked over $3 million.
President Donald Trump says he will allow Nvidia to sell its H200 computer chip used in the development of artificial intelligence to “approved customers” in China. Trump said Monday on his social media site that he had informed China’s leader Xi Jinping and “President Xi responded positively!” There had been concerns about allowing advanced computer chips into China as it could help them to compete against the U.S. in building out AI capabilities. But there has also been a desire to develop the AI ecosystem with American companies such as chipmaker Nvidia.
The end of 2025 is almost upon us. And it’s time to unpack Spotify Wrapped. On Wednesday, the music streaming giant delivered its annual recap — giving its hundreds of millions of users worldwide a look at the top songs, artists, podcasts and other audio they listened to over the past year. Spotify isn’t the only platform to roll out a yearly glimpse of data collected from consumers’ online lives. But since its launch about a decade ago, Wrapped has become one of the most anticipated. And Spotify is billing the 2025 edition to be the biggest yet, with a host of new features it hopes may also address some disappointments users had last year.
Elon Musk’s X unveiled a feature that lets users see where an account is based. Online sleuths and experts quickly found that many popular accounts, often posting in support of the U.S. MAGA movement with thousands or hundreds of thousands of followers, are based outside the U.S. This raises concerns about foreign influence in U.S. politics.
The Enhanced Games is going public in two ways — with a new listing on the Nadsaq stock exchange and also by offering a direct-to-consumer business focused on performance products.
Real estate software company RealPage has agreed to stop sharing nonpublic information between landlords as part of a settlement with the Department of Justice.
2025’s top Black Friday tech deals from smart speakers to wearables. Tom’s Guide editor Kate Kozuch shares expert picks and tips for smart holiday shopping.
Computer chipmaker Nvidia is poised to release a quarterly earnings report that is expected to either deepen a recent downturn in the stock market or prompt an ebullient sigh of relief among investors increasingly worried the world’s most valuable company is perched upon an artificial intelligence bubble about to burst.
