Christie's stolen data sold to highest bidder rather than leaked, RansomHub claims The cybercrims who claimed the attack on Christie's fancy themselves as auctioneers as well, after they allegedly sold off the company's data to the highest bidder instead of leaking everything on the dark web. RansomHub set a June 3 deadline for Christie's to pay a ransom demand yet that deadline passed and the crooks' …
"Auctions are more likely to be successful where the victim has a meaningful brand or there's some expectation the data has real value."
Say like Christies? Where almost every customer will be millionaires or billionaires?
"Smith said there's also the possibility that the scale of RansomHub's theft wasn't as grand as it let on and that holding an "auction" was merely a face-saving exercise."
That is awfully thin rationale for thinking it wasn't sold. Just because you don't want it to be true does not make it so. And these people are experts?
Being who their customers are, if I were Christie's I would have done everything in my power to make sure my Very wealthy and Very powerful customers were looked after with the white glove treatment.
Their assertion that there was "likely" no auction of what could be fantastically valuable lists of personal information, on the basis of, "we just don't think it happened" should be incredible alarming to anyone who has dealt with Christie's.
Christies claiming they need to make a copy of their customers' IDs for "compliance" reasons smells like total, 100% farm-grade bullshit.
I can walk into all manner of shops and make a purchase without the clerk demanding to scan (or photocopy) my ID. They might ask to SEE (eyeballs-only) my ID if I'm buying age-restricted products.
Bad guys 'n gals might do that -- buying big-ticket items with their ill-gotten gains -- but I don't see how that would 'clean' the money. Rozzers and Revenuers looking at someone will ask the obvious question, "That's a fine yacht you have there, Mr. Capone. So, where did you get the money to buy that yacht? And do you have paperwork to back up your claims?"
(American gangster Al Capone received a lengthy jail term, not for the murders and other violent acts he committed, but for tax evasion.)
It adds another layer to get through, and while you may think it doesn't happen the law in the UK says that auction houses have to do due diligence on purchasers who spend more than €10,000 (and that currency symbol is not a typo). See (for example) https://www.mallgalleries.org.uk/anti-money-laundering-legislation.
The EU has the same rules, and I am pretty sure so does America too.
The whole reason for laundering money is to provide the paperwork to try and prove the money came from legal sources.
There are plenty of well documented cases of people trying to launder cash through the purchase of high value art and other easily disposable high value items, they might be an interesting read for you.
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