U.S. Government Entity Paid Kairos $1 Million in Data-Theft Extortion Case

A US government entity paid approximately $1 million to prevent the release of stolen files. The payment was made to a group called Kairos, which may not be a traditional ransomware gang. This information comes from a case study based on a leaked negotiation chat and the blockchain trail left by the payment. The case study found no evidence that Kairos had ever encrypted any files, which is unusual for a ransomware attack. The group's methods and motivations are unclear, but the payment was made to prevent a data leak. The case study was conducted by Rakesh Krishnan for Ransom-ISAC.