Medusa Ransomware on the Rise: From Data Leaks to Multi-Extortion

The threat actors associated with the Medusa ransomware have ramped up their activities following the debut of a dedicated data leak site on the dark web in February 2023 to publish sensitive data of victims who are unwilling to agree to their demands. "As part of their multi-extortion strategy,...

Crimeware and financial cyberthreats in 2024

At Kaspersky, we constantly monitor the financial cyberthreat landscape, which includes threats to financial institutions, such as banks, and financially motivated threats, such as ransomware, that target a broader range of industries. As part of our Kaspersky Security Bulletin, we try to predict...

LockBit 3.0 Ransomware Builder Leak Gives Rise to Hundreds of New Variants

The leak of the LockBit 3.0 ransomware builder last year has led to threat actors abusing the tool to spawn new variants. Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky said it detected a ransomware intrusion that deployed a version of LockBit but with a markedly different ransom demand procedure. "The...

MOVEit discloses THIRD critical vulnerability

In chess, the threefold repetition rule states that a player may claim a draw if the same position occurs three times during the game. Whether this means that customers of the popular file transfer utility MOVEit Transfer can ask for their money back remains to be seen, but we do hope it signals...

20-Year-Old Russian LockBit Ransomware Affiliate Arrested in Arizona

The U.S. Department of Justice DoJ on Thursday unveiled charges against a Russian national for his alleged involvement in deploying LockBit ransomware to targets in the U.S., Asia, Europe, and Africa. Ruslan Magomedovich Astamirov, 20, of Chechen Republic has been accused of perpetrating at least...

Money Message Ransomware Strikes with Million-Dollar Demands

Threat Level Attack Report For a detailed threat advisory, download the pdf file here Summary Money Message is a new ransomware group that targets victims all over the world, demanding million-dollar ransoms to avoid data leaks and deliver a decryptor. To receive real-time threat advisories, plea...

LockBit ransomware attacks Essendant

The LockBit ransomware group is claiming responsibility for taking down a US-based distributor of office products called Essendant. This attack, which is said to have begun on or around March 6, created severe ramifications for the organisation, disrupting freight carrier pickups, online orders,...

Hackers threaten to leak STALKER 2 assets if devs don’t heed demands

Ukrainian game developer GSC Game World has announced it was breached by Russian hacktivists who stole assets related to the much-awaited game STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl. A message from GSC Game World team pic.twitter.com/rqRM0tFZmO -- S.T.A.L.K.E.R. OFFICIAL @stalkerthegame March 12, 2023...

Guide: How MSSPs and vCISOs can extend their services into compliance readiness without increasing cost

Compliance services are emerging as one of the hottest areas of cybersecurity. While compliance used to be mainly the province of large enterprises, times have changed, and it is now a day-to-day concern for a growing number of small and medium businesses. Even when these organizations are not...

Royal Ransomware Threat Takes Aim at U.S. Healthcare System

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services HHS has cautioned of ongoing Royal ransomware attacks targeting healthcare entities in the country. "While most of the known ransomware operators have performed Ransomware-as-a-Service, Royal appears to be a private group without any affiliates whi...

Fodcha DDoS Botnet Resurfaces with New Capabilities

The threat actor behind the Fodcha distributed denial-of-service DDoS botnet has resurfaced with new capabilities, researchers reveal. This includes changes to its communication protocol and the ability to extort cryptocurrency payments in exchange for stopping the DDoS attack against a target,...

BlackCat Ransomware group implements quadruple extortion

Threat Level Actor Report For a detailed advisory, download the pdf file here Summary The BlackCat ransomware group performs quadruple extortion techniques to pressurize victims in order to pay ransom. Recently, the ransomware group has raised its stakes up to $2.5M in demands...

Karakurt extortion group: Threat profile

The FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation, together with CISA Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and other federal agencies, recently released a joint cybersecurity advisory CSA about the Karakurt data extortion group also known as Karakurt Team and Karakurt Lair. Like RansomHouse,...

New 'GoodWill' Ransomware Forces Victims to Donate Money and Clothes to the Poor

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a new ransomware strain called GoodWill that compels victims into donating for social causes and provide financial assistance to people in need. "The ransomware group propagates very unusual demands in exchange for the decryption key," researchers from...

It’s business as usual for REvil ransomware

After the FBS arrested 14 of its members in January, and a subsequent lull in action, the REvil ransomware gang appears to be back. We say "appears" because its still unclear whether the groups operations have indeed restarted. To the trained eye, REvils movements seem out of sorts. When REvils o...

LockBit, BlackCat, Swissport, Oh My! Ransomware Activity Stays Strong

Law enforcement, C-suite executives and the cybersecurity community at-large have been laser-focused on stopping the expensive and disruptive barrage of ransomware attacks — and it appears to be working, at least to some extent. Nonetheless, recent moves from the LockBit 2.0 and BlackCat gangs,...

Conti, DeadBolt Target Delta, QNAP

Two Taiwanese companies were affected by separate ransomware incidents this week, forcing one to scramble to restore crippled systems and another to push out an emergency update to mitigate attacks on its customers. Delta Electronics, an electronics company that provides products for Apple, Tesla...

5 Cybersecurity Trends to Watch in 2022

No one could have predicted the sheer chaos the cybersecurity industry would experience over the course of 2021. Record-annihilating numbers of ransomware attacks, SolarWinds’ supply-chain havoc and most recently, the discovery of Log4j by…Minecraft gamers. All of it would have sounded too wild f...

DDoS Attacks Shatter Records in Q3, Report Finds

The third quarter saw the sheer volume of distributed denial-of-service DDoS attacks surge to several thousand hits per day, signaling a re-distribution of tactics by malicious actors away from cryptomining and toward the use of DDoS as a tool of intimidation, disinformation and straight-up...

Protect yourself from BlackMatter ransomware: Advice issued

Despite promises made by the BlackMatter ransomware gang about which organizations and business types they would avoid, multiple US critical infrastructure entities have been targeted. Now, the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI, in conjunction with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security...