Catching the big fish: Analyzing a large-scale phishing-as-a-service operation

In researching phishing attacks, we came across a campaign that used a rather high volume of newly created and unique subdomains—over 300,000 in a single run. This investigation led us down a rabbit hole as we unearthed one of the operations that enabled the campaign: a large-scale...

Russian Ransomware Group REvil Back Online After 2-Month Hiatus

The operators behind the REvil ransomware-as-a-service RaaS staged a surprise return after a two-month hiatus following the widely publicized attack on technology services provider Kaseya on July 4. Two of the dark web portals, including the gang's Happy Blog data leak site and its...

Podcast: Ransomware Up x10; Telecoms Uber Walloped

Year-over-year, ransomware spiked more than tenfold in the first half of 2021, researchers report. According to Fortinet’s latest semiannual FortiGuard Labs Global Threat Landscape Report PDF, released on Monday, the telecommunications sector was the most heavily targeted, followed by government,...

IT Giant Accenture Hit by LockBit Ransomware; Hackers Threaten to Leak Data

Global IT consultancy giant Accenture has become the latest company to be hit by the LockBit ransomware gang, according to a post made by the operators on their dark web portal, likely filling a void left in the wake of DarkSide and REvil shutdown. "These people are beyond privacy and security. I...

New Ransomware Gangs Haron & BlackMatter Are After Fat Cats

So much for darkened servers at the headquarters of DarkSide or REvil ransomware groups. Turns out, we’ve got either their rebranded versions or two new ransomware gangs to contend with. The first new group to appear this month was Haron, and the second is named BlackMatter. As Ars Technica‘s Dan...

Defeating Ransomware-as-a-Service? Think Intel-Sharing

The Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack put a glaring spotlight on the ransomware scourge – and, in particular, on the rise of ransomware-as-a-service RaaS. That attack was perpetrated by DarkSide, a RaaS platform that purportedly first surfaced last August. While the group now claims they’re don...

Smoking Out a DARKSIDE Affiliate’s Supply Chain Software Compromise

Mandiant observed DARKSIDE affiliate UNC2465 accessing at least one victim through a Trojanized software installer downloaded from a legitimate website. While this victim organization detected the intrusion, engaged Mandiant for incident response, and avoided ransomware, others may be at risk. As...

Emerging Ransomware Targets Dozens of Businesses Worldwide

An emerging ransomware strain in the threat landscape claims to have breached 30 organizations in just four months since it went operational by riding on the coattails of a notorious ransomware syndicate. First observed in February 2021, "Prometheus" is an offshoot of another well-known ransomwar...

Threat spotlight: Conti, the ransomware used in the HSE healthcare attack

On the 14th of May, the Health Service Executive HSE, Ireland’s publicly funded healthcare system, fell victim to a Conti ransomware attack, forcing the organization to shut down more than 80,000 affected endpoints and plunging them back to the age of pen and paper. This happened a week after...

A Peek Inside the Underground Ransomware Economy

Ransomware is not just a type of malware – it’s also at the center of a sophisticated, flourishing underground economy that has all the conventions of legitimate commerce. It’s a community made up of major malware developers, affiliates and channel partners, and those that provide adjacent...

DarkSide Ransomware Gang Extorted $90 Million from Several Victims in 9 Months

DarkSide, the hacker group behind the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack earlier this month, received $90 million in bitcoin payments following a nine-month ransomware spree, making it one of the most profitable cybercrime groups. "In total, just over $90 million in bitcoin ransom payments were...

DarkSide Suffers ‘Oh, Crap!’ Server Shutdowns

DarkSide, the ransomware-as-a-server RaaS gang that crippled Colonial Pipeline Co. a week ago, extorted around $5 million, and sent the fuel company a decryption tool that reportedly could barely limp through the process of unlocking files, has now been paralyzed itself. In the wee hours of Frida...

Babuk Ransomware Gang Mulls Retirement

Just a few days after hackers bragged about purportedly raiding the computer systems of the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department MPD and doxxing what looked like its data, the Babuk ransomware-as-a-service RaaS gang prepared a goodbye note saying that they’re hanging up its spurs...

Mount Locker Ransomware Offering Double Extortion Scheme to Other Hackers

A relatively new ransomware strain behind a series of breaches on corporate networks has developed new capabilities that allow it to broaden the scope of its targeting and evade security software—as well as with ability for its affiliates to launch double extortion attacks. The MountLocker...

Zeppelin Ransomware Returns with New Trojan on Board

The Zeppelin ransomware has sailed back into relevance, after a hiatus of several months. A wave of attacks were spotted in August by Juniper Threatlab researchers, making use of a new trojan downloader. These, like an initial Zeppelin wave observed in late 2019, start with phishing emails with...

Iran-Linked 'Newbie' Hackers Spread Dharma Ransomware Via RDP Ports

A group of ‘script kiddies’ tied to Iran are targeting companies worldwide with internet-facing Remote Desktop Protocol RDP ports and weak credentials in order to infect them with Dharma ransomware. The Dharma malware also known as Crysis has been distributed as a ransomware-as-a-service RaaS mod...

McAfee ATR Analyzes Sodinokibi aka REvil Ransomware-as-a-Service – Follow The Money

ARCHIVED STORY McAfee ATR Analyzes Sodinokibi aka REvil Ransomware-as-a-Service – Follow The Money By John Fokker · October 14, 2019 Episode 3: Follow the Money This is the third installment of the McAfee Advanced Threat Research ATR analysis of Sodinokibi and its connections to GandCrab, the mos...

Threat Spotlight: Sodinokibi ransomware attempts to fill GandCrab void

Sodinokibi ransomware, also known as Sodin and REvil, is hardly three months old, yet it has quickly become a topic of discussion among cybersecurity professionals because of its apparent connection with the infamous-but-now-defunct GandCrab ransomware. Detected by Malwarebytes as...

Is ‘REvil’ the New GandCrab Ransomware?

The cybercriminals behind the GandCrab ransomware-as-a-service RaaS offering recently announced they were closing up shop and retiring after having allegedly earned more than $2 billion in extortion payments from victims. But a growing body of evidence suggests the GandCrab team have instead...

Kraken Ransomware Upgrades Distribution with RaaS Model

The Kraken ransomware author has released a second version of the malicious code, along with a unique affiliate program on the Dark Web. According to research into Kraken v.2 the new version is being promoted in a ransomware-as-a-service RaaS model to underground forum customers, via a video...