Here’s today’s reminder not to just repeat threat actors’ claims without checking or attempting to verify them first:
Qilin added a company to their dark web leak site that they misidentified as Richardson Sales Performance. It wasn’t Richardson Sales Performance. What they appear to have hit, based on their proof of claims screenshot, was a company called Richardson Projects (Richardson Holdings) in Sri Lanka.
The first I heard of this was when I got an email from Richardson Sales Performance to tell me that it wasn’t them. I hadn’t reported on anything, so had no idea what this was all about, but I checked Qilin’s site and saw what had happened.
I then sent a message to Qilin telling them they goofed and how. We’ll see if they change their listing, but I’m not holding my breath.
I also responded to Richardson Sales Performance and told them they could tell folks that DataBreaches.net had checked and confirmed their claim that they were not Qilin’s victim. They appreciated that.
This is not the first time threat actors have misidentified their victims, and it won’t be the last. There are many bots — and humans — who just repeat claims by threat actors. Some folks will add that the claim is as yet unconfirmed, but they’ve never even tried to confirm it or get a response from the named entity.
Companies shouldn’t have to deal with the reputation harm of false headlines from multiple bots and news outlets because no one bothered to even try to verify a threat actor’s claims.
We can do better.
This post originally appeared on my LinkedIn account.