The National Rifle Association (NRA) in the US is under attack and this time its guns can’t help it. Grief, the new ransomware gang on the block, posted to its leak site claiming to have documents from the group’s databases.
While Grief may be relatively new to the scene, it has strong ties to the Russian group Evil Corp. They’ve been around for much longer, since 2009, and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.
Yesterday, the NRA public affairs managing director, Andrew Arulanandam, issued a statement on Twitter. If we were members of that group we wouldn’t find it particularly reassuring.
“NRA does not discuss matters relating to its physical or electronic security. However, the NRA takes extraordinary measures to protect information regarding its members, donors, and operations – and is vigilant in doing so.”–Andrew Arulanandam, managing dir., NRA Public Affairs
— NRA (@NRA) October 27, 2021
Where are your guns now, NRA?
If you’re a member, it’s even more troubling that it looks like Grief isn’t fibbing. A security analysis of the leaked documents revealed them to be minutes from a very recent meeting and documents relating to grants, according to ZDNet. The group threatened to release more documents if their demands, an undisclosed amount of ransom, were not met.
The NRA will have a tough choice here, as any victim of ransomware does. More so in this case, however, as the US Treasury Department placed sanctions on Evil Corp. Meaning if the NRA want to pay them, they’ll need to ask the treasury for permission first.
Even if they were to pay the ransom there’s still no way of knowing for sure where the documents will end up or if the group will destroy them at all. It’s not a great time to be a gun-violence advocate.