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US offers $10m bounty for DarkSide hackers
The United States announced a $10 million reward Thursday for help finding leaders of the high-profile ransomware gang DarkSide, authorities' latest try at combating spiking cyber-extortion attacks. Washington blamed the Russia-based group for the online assault that forced the shutdown of the largest oil pipeline in the eastern United States in May. Cyber-extortion heists involve breaking into a company or institution's network to encrypt its data, then demanding a ransom, typically paid via cryptocurrency in exchange for the digital key to unlock it. Washington also offered a $5 million bounty for information leading to the arrest or conviction in any country of anyone who tries to join in an attack with DarkSide.
At least 69 dead in west Niger jihadist attack
At least 69 people, including a local mayor, have been killed in an attack in Niger's volatile "tri-border" zone with Burkina Faso and Mali, the interior ministry said on Thursday. The assault took place on Tuesday at Adab-Dab, a village about 55 kilometres from Banibangou in the western region of Tillaberi, but was only confirmed by the government on Thursday. A search was under way for the unidentified attackers. The government declared two days of national morning from today. Local sources earlier blamed Islamic State in the Greater Sahara group for the attack.
France orders poultry lockdown due to bird flu
French farmers were yesterday ordered to keep their poultry indoors due to the heightened risk of bird flu being spread by migratory birds. The order published in the French official journal follows a similar measure adopted in the Netherlands last week after a case of the highly-contagious H5 strain of bird flu was discovered on a poultry farm and 36,000 birds were culled as a protective measure. The French agricultural ministry said separately that 130 outbreaks of bird flu in wild fowl and farm poultry have been discovered since August in Europe.
Indonesia flash floods kill at least eight
Indonesian rescuers scrambled yesterday to find survivors under mud-swamped hillsides after flash floods on Java island killed at least eight people, the disaster agency said. Torrential rains on Thursday unleashed flash floods in Malang and the highland city of Batu, inundating houses with mud and debris, while a wall of water destroyed local bridges. Yesterday, teams raced to find several more people unaccounted for in Batu, according to Indonesia's national disaster mitigation agency, as the dead were placed in body bags.
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