McAfee Research Blog reports that ASmallWorld, a social networking site for jetsetters received an extortion demand:
Yesterday the French police force (OCLCTIC), accompanied by FBI agents, arrested two French residents. They were suspected of hacking [ASmallWorld] social-network platform dedicated to the worldwide upper crust. They allegedly attempted to extort US$1 million from the webmasters to not divulge stolen data.
Two years ago, a paper named “Asmallworld.net: we have hacked the smartest worldwide website” made some noise in France.
Danny Shea provides additional details on Huffington Post:
French police, assisted by the FBI, took in the two hackers — one in Paris, one in the Gironde — for an attempt to blackmail several members of ASMALLWORLD’s management team by suggesting they had full access to the member data base and asking them to cough up a million dollars in exchange for their silence. The hackers contacted ASMALLWORLD in late May.
The company, which keeps neither credit card information nor any private information about its members, assessed the threat level as low and began working with authorities to launch an investigation monitoring the hackers’ online activity. That investigation helped reveal their identities, and they are now in police custody.