Tosan has sent $561,000 worth of Bitcoin since both parties began negotiations in early August.
An Iranian IT vendor has been paying ransomware payments on an installment basis following an attack last month.
According to CyberScoop, Tosan suffered a significant cyberattack by the IRLeaks threat operation last month, which was reported to have compromised data from nearly 70% of the country's active credit entities.
This has led to Tosan sending nearly $561,000 worth of Bitcoin, or less than a third of the demanded ransom, to IRLeaks' cryptocurrency wallet since both parties began negotiations in early August.
This began with the payment of a Bitcoin in exchange for the removal of IRLeaks' posting on Telegram, before settling to a three Bitcoin per week arrangement until the 35 Bitcoin total is reached, according to emails between Tosan CEO Arash Babaei and IRLeaks provided by a third party and verified by a source close to the matter.
At least two different Iranian exchanges provided payments to the wallet, which has also been used by threat actors for IT infrastructure purchases, noted Chainalysis Head of Cyber Threat Intelligence Jackie Burns Koven.
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Dan Raywood is a B2B journalist with 25 years of experience, including covering cybersecurity for the past 17 years. He has extensively covered topics from Advanced Persistent Threats and nation-state hackers to major data breaches and regulatory changes.
He has spoken at events including 44CON, Infosecurity Europe, RANT Forum, BSides Scotland, Steelcon and the National Cyber Security Show, and served as editor of SC Media UK, Infosecurity Magazine and IT Security Guru. He was also an analyst with 451 Research and a product marketing lead at Tenable.
