In Reply to: "The Pitt" took a plotline from Romanian hospitals posted by mh on June 23, 2026 at 09:37:51
Hacking is a business. You want to steal just enough money not to become too much of a bother.
My college was an early victim where we were locked out of everything. They often know how much insurance coverage an organization has and ask for an amount that is likely to be covered by that insurance.
They even have IT hotlines, so after you've paid the ransom, they make sure you get your files back. A hacker group with a poor reputation doesn't get paid in the future.
While no college admits to paying ransoms, there were colleges that regained access to their files earlier than others, such as USC, so it's possible they paid.
When you start going after hospitals, energy grids, traffic signals, or nuclear power plants, that's when the big players in government and companies like Microsoft step in.
Unless it was a Russian-backed operation—which has been part of the broader cyber conflict surrounding the Ukraine war—it doesn't make much sense to go this big if the goal is simply making money.