Cybercriminals send journalists flash drives with explosives

According to CBS News, five Ecuadorian journalists received flash drives with explosives in the mail. When each of them was activated, the detonators went off. According to police officials, the journalists suffered minor injuries to their hands and face, and their lives were not in danger.

Law enforcement officials said that each of the exploded flash drives contained a charge of hexogen. According to the Ecuadorian Environmental Protection Agency, such explosives are commonly used by the military. Classically, hexogen is mixed with other explosives (such as TNT) and only then placed in a detonator, so the police noted the atypical nature of the crime.

At the beginning of the week, Fundamedios, an Ecuadorian non-profit organization that works on media rights, issued a statement about the incidents. Following the publicity, four more journalists from different cities in Ecuador, including the capital, reported similar cases.

Another media professional was more fortunate than his colleagues. A journalist from the EXA FM radio station received an envelope with a flash drive, handed it to the producer, who connected it to a computer using a cable with an adapter. However, the flash drive did not explode. The police found that the drive also contained hexogen. Forensic experts believe that the flash drive did not detonate only because the adapter used by the producer did not have enough power to activate the detonator.

The Fundamedios organization said that the flash drives with explosives are most likely to replace malware. Analysts believe that journalists have been targeted by cybercriminals who are ordered by interested parties. Probably, high-ranking officials, businessmen, criminals, and famous figures do not want to be exposed and punished, so they hire criminal organizations that can dispose of information remotely. However, the chosen methods are not only ineffective, but also rather amateurish.

It should be noted that the physical destruction of working gadgets does not protect potential criminals from detection — professional newsrooms store important information in cloud storage, so they can easily restore it at any time.