The Drop in Ransomware Attacks in 2024 and What it Means

The ransomware industry surged in 2023 as it saw an alarming 55.5% increase in victims worldwide, reaching a staggering 5,070. But 2024 is starting off showing a very different picture. While the numbers skyrocketed in Q4 2023 with 1309 cases, in Q1 2024, the ransomware industry was down to 1,048...

Navigating Evolving Cybersecurity: Recent Trends and Future Outlook

“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." - Winston Churchill While Churchill may not have been the first person to use a variation of this quote, the essence of its meaning rang true then and still does today. In this spirit, and so that we may collectively learn and evolve...

E-Root Marketplace Admin Sentenced to 42 Months for Selling 350K Stolen Credentials

A 31-year-old Moldovan national has been sentenced to 42 months in prison in the U.S. for operating an illicit marketplace called E-Root Marketplace that offered for sale hundreds of thousands of compromised credentials, the Department of Justice DoJ announced. Sandu Boris Diaconu was charged wit...

Alert: GhostSec and Stormous Launch Joint Ransomware Attacks in Over 15 Countries

The cybercrime group called GhostSec has been linked to a Golang variant of a ransomware family called GhostLocker. "TheGhostSec and Stormous ransomware groups are jointly conducting double extortion ransomware attacks on various business verticals in multiple countries," Cisco Talos researcher...

Report Uncovers Massive Sale of Compromised ChatGPT Credentials

By Deeba Ahmed Group-IB Report Warns of Evolving Cyber Threats Including AI and macOS Vulnerabilities and Ransomware Attacks. This is a post from HackRead.com Read the original post: Report Uncovers Massive Sale of Compromised ChatGPT Credentials...

FBI Warns U.S. Healthcare Sector of Targeted BlackCat Ransomware Attacks

The U.S. government is warning about the resurgence of BlackCat aka ALPHV ransomware attacks targeting the healthcare sector as recently as this month. "Since mid-December 2023, of the nearly 70 leaked victims, the healthcare sector has been the most commonly victimized," the government said in a...

Identity theft is number one threat for consumers, says report

The German Federal Office for Information Security BSI has published a report on The State of IT Security in Germany in 2023, and the number one threat for consumers is… identity theft. The thing is, you can protect your devices and your online privacy as much as possible, but what happens when...

Law enforcement trolls LockBit, reveals massive takedown

In an act of exquisite trolling, the UKs National Crime Agency NCA has announced further details about its disruption of the LockBit ransomware group by using the groups own dark web website. The LockBit dark web site has a new look Since the demise of Conti in 2022, LockBit has been unchallenged...

Ransomware Reality Check: Deciphering Priorities in a Sea of Cyber Extortion

Welcome to a critical exploration of the 2023 Cyber Vulnerability Landscape, with a specific focus on the escalating threat of ransomware. I have previously shared the broader results we found in evaluating the 2023 threat landscape; this is now a deeper dive into what the data reveals specifical...

How ransomware changed in 2023

In 2023, the CL0P ransomware gang broke the scalability barrier and shook the security world with a series of short, automated campaigns, hitting hundreds of unsuspecting targets simultaneously with attacks based on zero-day exploits. The gangs novel approach challenged a bottleneck that makes it...

A week in security (February 5 – February 11)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Ivanti urges customers to patch yet another critical vulnerability Ransomware in 2023 recap: 5 key takeaways FBI and CISA publish guide to Living off the Land techniques Warning from LastPass as fake app found on Apple App Store 2 million job seekers targeted by da...

Preventing Data Loss: Backup and Recovery Strategies for Exchange Server Administrators

In the current digital landscape, data has emerged as a crucial asset for organizations, akin to currency. It's the lifeblood of any organization in today's interconnected and digital world. Thus, safeguarding the data is of paramount importance. Its importance is magnified in on-premises Exchang...

How CISOs’ Roles – and Security Operations – Will Change in 2024

It’s fair to say that 2023 was a turning point for the cybersecurity industry, and no one felt it more than the CISO. From the onslaught of ransomware and zero-day attacks, to the SEC’s new reporting rules, and added to technological innovation and sprawl, CISOs have never been under more pressur...

Microsoft is named a Leader in the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Endpoint Protection Platforms

It’s no secret that ransomware is top of mind for many chief information security officers CISOs as the number of attacks has increased exponentially. As seen in the latest Microsoft Digital Defense Report, our “telemetry indicates that organizations faced an increased rate of ransomware attacks...

2023 Ransomware Stats: A Look Back To Plan Ahead

Last year was not a year for the faint of heart. Organizations of every size found themselves faced with ransomware attacks at varying levels of sophistication, yet every one of them was damaging. And as we step into 2024, the first victims of ransomware attacks are already being reported. What c...

DoJ Charges 19 Worldwide in $68 Million xDedic Dark Web Marketplace Fraud

The U.S. Department of Justice DoJ said it charged 19 individuals worldwide in connection with the now-defunct xDedic Marketplace, which is estimated to have facilitated more than $68 million in fraud. In wrapping up its investigation into the dark web portal, the agency said the transnational...

Oops! Black Basta ransomware flubs encryption

Researchers at SRLabs have made a decryption tool available for Black Basta ransomware, allowing some victims of the group to decrypt files without paying a ransom. The decryptor works for victims whose files were encrypted between November 2022 and December 2023. The decryptor, called Black Bast...

Carbanak Banking Malware Resurfaces with New Ransomware Tactics

The banking malware known as Carbanak has been observed being used in ransomware attacks with updated tactics. "The malware has adapted to incorporate attack vendors and techniques to diversify its effectiveness," cybersecurity firm NCC Group said in an analysis of ransomware attacks that took...

Windows CLFS and five exploits used by ransomware operators (Exploit #4 – CVE-2023-23376)

This is part five of our study about the Common Log File System CLFS and five vulnerabilities in this Windows OS component that have been used in ransomware attacks throughout the year. Please read the previous parts first if you havent already. You can skip to the other parts using this table of...

Windows CLFS and five exploits used by ransomware operators

In April 2023, we published a blog post about a zero-day exploit we discovered in ransomware attacks that was patched as CVE-2023-28252 after we promptly reported it to Microsoft. In that blog post, we mentioned that the zero-day exploit we discovered was very similar to other Microsoft Windows...