Up to 1,500 firms hit in Kaseya ransomware attack

PARIS: Hundreds of Swedish supermarkets remained shut Tuesday after a major cyberattack that has crippled hundreds of companies worldwide for the past four days, with the perpetrators demanding $70 million in bitcoin to undo the damage.

Kaseya, the Miami-based IT company at the centre of the hack, said late Monday that up to 1,500 businesses had been affected by Friday’s attack, which has been blamed on Russian-speaking hackers.

Experts believe this could be the biggest “ransomware” attack on record — an increasingly lucrative form of digital hostage-taking in which hackers encrypt victims’ data and then demand money for restored access.

The Kaseya attack has ricocheted around the world,…