Hackers demand almost $80M from UK's Royal Mail

The LockBit hacking group that encrypted Royal Mail data sought a £65.7 million (just under $79.88 million) ransom from the company, a demand that the postal group's board appears to have rebuffed, so setting the stage for a potential large-scale leak of company information, Report informs via The Financial Times.

Negotiations with the hackers fell apart after more than three weeks of back-and-forth that included discussions of Royal Mail revenues and the company's business challenges, according to a log of the conversations released by LockBit.

The hackers demanded a new negotiator and have threatened to release large amounts of Royal Mail data if negotiations failed completely. The UK's main provider of postal services has been racing to restore overseas parcel deliveries since its online defenses were defeated by the LockBit group.

LockBit said it was demanding 0.5 percent of the revenues of "Royal Mail International", presumably referring to the annual sales of parent company International Distribution Services, which resulted in an argument between the unnamed Royal Mail negotiator and the hackers.

"Under no circumstances will we pay you the absurd amount of money you have demanded," the negotiator said, according to the leaked chats. "This is an amount that could never be taken seriously by our board."

Earlier, when asked by the hackers to estimate the company's revenues, the negotiator lamented: "All we have had is losses . . . there are several articles on Google about our financial situation and how bad it is currently."

Although IDS's lucrative international parcels business has remained profitable, UK-based Royal Mail is losing money as it suffers from a declining letters business and several months of strike action.

Royal Mail declined to comment on the authenticity of the leaked chats. It is not uncommon during ransomware negotiations for hackers to release these communications in order to add pressure on their victims.

Royal Mail has yet to officially confirm that LockBit breached its cyber defenses, encrypted its data and is now holding it ransom.