Ransomware attack linked to gold heist at museum

"The Museum's systems were so damaged that it reportedly cancelled an exhibition. Last week the Museum discovered that thieves had broken into its minerals display section by using an angle grinder to cut through a door, before wielding a blowtorch to open a case containing gold specimens worth about $705,000. French media report the heist was possible because the July cyberattack broke the Museum's alarms and video surveillance systems."

"The FBI has warned that "threat actors" are spoofing its Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), the service it suggests the public use to report online crimes, and advised netizens to ignore any links to the site generated by search engines or other third parties. The FBI didn't identify the attackers but in an alert posted last Friday warned the public that sponsored links produced after searches for the IC3 "are usually paid imitators looking to deter traffic from the legitimate IC3 website.""

Dozens of French museums were hit by a ransomware attack in August 2024, and the Natural History Museum suffered another attack in July 2025. The museum's systems were so damaged that an exhibition was cancelled and alarms and video surveillance were disabled. Thieves used an angle grinder to cut through a door and a blowtorch to open a case, stealing four gold nuggets weighing six kilograms, valued at about $705,000. Officials say the gold was likely melted down and is unrecoverable, and the thieves likely knew the alarms had been disabled. The FBI warned that actors are spoofing the Internet Crime Complaint Center and advised direct access via www.ic3.gov.

Read at Theregister