Ellen Conlin Hair & Beauty, a Scottish chain of hair salons owned by the husband-wife team Ellen Conlin-Main and Ken Main, reportedly paid hackers € 1,000 in Bitcoin to recover the salon's data.
Ken Main, the salon chain's co-owner, told the BBC the company decided to pay the hacker after receiving a message from a Russian email address demanding that the company pay the ransom in Bitcoin.
In a Facebook post last week, the company said all of the appointment records were lost but claimed that “no personal data has been compromised.” The salon asked clients to call to confirm appointment times.
Main told the news service that the hair salon recovered some of its information after the ransom was paid.
Last week, speaking at the Cyber Security Summit 2015 in Boston, FBI assistant special agent Joseph Bonavolonta said the agency tells victims “just to pay the ransom” when hit by a ransomware attack. “The ransomware is that good.”
Ellen Conlin Hair & Beauty was unable to be reached for comment.
