Tag: Ransomware
$10M Reward for LockBit Mastermind – June 10th
The U.S. Government launched a manhunt for the LockBit ransomware mastermind, Dmitry Yuryevich Khoroshev, for a bounty worth $10M. According to the Justice Department, LockBit is suspected to be behind attacks in almost 120 countries that have extorted nearly $1 billion.
Meta, IRS, Apple, and Amazon Among Impersonated Brands – June 7th
According to a report from Mailtrack, Meta, the IRS, Apple, and Amazon are among the top impersonated American brands. Mailtrack's report also outlined the top impersonated non-American brands, such as Japanese au by KDDI, JR East, Aeon, and JCB. It was based on an analysis of more than 1.14 million phishing scam reports listed on PhishTank.
Law Enforcement Ramp-Up Efforts to Capture ‘Emotet’ Mastermind – June 3rd
The law enforcement agencies behind Operation Endgame are seeking information about Odd, who is allegedly behind the ‘Emotet’ malware. Initially a banking trojan, the 'Emotet' malware evolved into a tool that delivers an array of payloads, including TrickBot, IcedID, QakBot, and others.
Organizations’ staff are their biggest security risk
Careless employees are the main root cause of data loss in organizations. According to the cybersecurity and compliance company Proofpoint, almost three-quarters (74 percent) of CISOs believe human error is their biggest cyber vulnerability. This is up from 60 percent in 2023 and 56 percent in 2022. Even more (80 percent) believe human risk and employee negligence will be the key cybersecurity concerns for the next two years. “Our research shows that CISOs generally believe their people are aware of their critical role in defending the business from cyber threats. That CISOs still see their people as the primary risk factor suggests a disconnect between employees’ understanding of cyber threats and their ability to keep them at bay,” says Proofpoint.
FBI takes down BreachForums -again!
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating the criminal hacking forum BreachForums after taking down its website last week. This follows the announcement in February of the seizure of the LockBit ransomware gang’s extortion website. “From June 2023 until May 2024, BreachForums (hosted at breachforums.st/.cx/.is/.vc and run by ShinyHunters) was operating as a clear-net marketplace for cybercriminals to buy, sell, and trade contraband, including stolen access devices, means of identification, hacking tools, breached databases, and other illegal services,” says an FBI advisory.
Millions of emails distributing LockBit ransomware
Affiliates of the infamous ransomware group LockBit have launched a potentially devastating new weaponized email tactic designed to cause maximum disruption to millions of companies in the US and around the world. At the end of April this year, researchers at cybersecurity firm Proofpoint began to observe high-volume ransomware campaigns sending out millions of fraudulent emails over a one-week period, facilitated by the Phorpiex botnet. In all cases, email messages purported to come from “Jenny Green” with the email address Jenny@gsd[.]com. These contained an attached ZIP file capable of downloading the LockBit Black ransomware payload from Phorpiex botnet infrastructure.
Boeing Discloses $200M Ransomware Attempt – May 13th
Boeing made a significant disclosure: The LockBit ransomware group targeted the company, which demanded a staggering $200M extortion payment. Boeing did not pay LockBit a ransom despite 43 GB of company data leaked on the ransomware group's website in November 2023. Boeing is now in contact with the FBI to mitigate the breach.
Ransomware drives corporate cyber-crime
Cybercriminals are getting greedier. According to Google subsidiary Mandiant’s M-Trends 2024 Special Report, the proportion of financially motivated intrusions grew from more than a quarter of all investigations (26 percent) in 2022 to over a third (36 percent) in 2023. Ransomware-related intrusions represented almost two-thirds of financially motivated intrusions and 23 percent of all 2023 intrusions; the remaining financially motivated intrusions included business email compromise (BEC) fraud and cryptocurrency theft. In 70 percent of cases, organizations learned of ransomware-related intrusions from external sources. In three-quarters of those cases, organizations were notified of a ransomware incident by an attacker ransom message. The remaining quarter came from external partners, such as law enforcement or cybersecurity companies. “This is consistent with the extortion business model in which attackers intentionally and abruptly notify organizations of a ransomware intrusion and demand payment,” says Mandiant.
Q1 2024 Ransomware Attacks See 22% Drop – April 10th
Cyberint released a report that discloses the 22% drop in ransomware cases from Q4 2023 to Q1 2024, or from 1,309 down to 1,048 cases. The 'Q1 Ransomware Report' credits the decrease in ransomware attacks to a major uptick in law enforcement crackdowns on cyber criminal gangs, with notable major actions against LockBit and ALPHV.
‘INC Ransom’ Group Threatens to Release NHS Data – March 28th
The 'INC Ransom' ransomware group publicly threatened to release three terabytes of NHS Scotland sensitive patient and staff data, after publishing a smaller sample size proving the viability of the threat. NHS Dumfries and Galloway's efforts to prevent the attack from being repeated are underway in collaboration with Police Scotland and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).
FBI reports record cybercrime losses in 2023
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation reports that last year the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received a record number of complaints, with potential losses exceeding $12.5 billion. Although the figures for 2023 represent a 10 percent increase over 2022 and a 22 percent rise in losses suffered, the FBI fears that even this only represents the tip of a vast unseen iceberg of cybercrime. The report quotes the FBI’s recent infiltration of the Hive ransomware group, which discovered that only 20 percent of victims had reported the incidents to law enforcement authorities.
Ransomware alert for US critical infrastructure
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have jointly issued a stark warning. The Phobos ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) model is now being widely used by threat actors of all kinds to attack a wide variety of critical infrastructure across America. “Since May 2019, Phobos ransomware targeted municipal and county governments, emergency services, education, public healthcare, and other critical infrastructure entities,” says the joint cybersecurity advisory document. Phobos RaaS is particularly dangerous as it is an off-the-shelf software that can be deployed by even relatively unskilled threat actors in conjunction with other open-source tools such as Smokeloader, Cobalt Strike, and Bloodhound. These tools are all widely accessible and easy to use in various operating environments, making Phobos the obvious go-to choice for a wide variety of threat actors.