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This BBC reporter was offered 25% of a ransom payout if he gave hackers access to the corporate network. He played along so we got a look inside their tactic here:

Initial contact came to @JoeTidy via Signal from "Syndicate" offering 15% of potential ransom payment for access to BBC systems. Offer later increased to 25% of what they claimed would be "1% of BBC's total revenue."

Threat actor claimed to be a "reach out manager" for Medusa - a Ransomware-as-a-Service operation believed to operate from Russia/CIS region. Group has hit 300+ victims in past 4 years per US cyber authorities. (img: TheHackerNews)

They requested specific network reconnaissance via command line queries, demonstrated knowledge of BBC's IT infrastructure, and offered "trust payment" of 0.5 BTC as deposit.

When reporter delayed, group pivoted to aggressive MFA bombing - continuously triggering 2FA notifications hoping for accidental approval. Same technique used in 2022 Uber compromise.

Worth noting actors maintained professional demeanor throughout most interactions. Only escalated to aggressive tactics (MFA bombing) after patience wore thin. Even apologized and said that was just them testing the login page.

Funnily enough, I was looking for Medusa stuff while writing this thread, and CISA's advisory on how to protect yourself from them is the top search result. While this is all good advice, it wouldn't have done much to stop this type of attack. Hacks are just logins in 2025.

No vulnerabilities used. No lateral network movement. It's all just OAuth tokens all the way down. Read the whole story here: