Exposed SMB: The Hidden Risk Behind ‘WantToCry’ Ransomware Attacks
Learn how the WantToCry ransomware group is exploiting vulnerable SMB (Server Message Block) services to launch devastating attacks. Understand the risks of misconfigured SMB and discover best practices to protect your organization from ransomware.
FunkSec – Alleged Top Ransomware Group Powered by AI
The FunkSec ransomware group emerged in late 2024 and published over 85 victims in December, surpassing every other ransomware group that month. FunkSec operators appear to use AI-assisted malware development which can enable even inexperienced actors to quickly produce and refine advanced tools. The group’s activities straddle the line between hacktivism and cybercrime, complicating efforts to understand their true motivations. Many of the group’s leaked datasets are recycled from previous hacktivism campaigns, raising doubts about the authenticity of their disclosures. Current methods of assessing ransomware group threats often rely on the actors’ own claims, highlighting the need for more objective evaluation techniques.
As the Akira ransomware group continues to evolve its operations, Talos has the latest research on the group's attack chain, targeted verticals, and potential future TTPs.
ESET researchers uncover new Rust-based tools that we named MDeployer and MS4Killer and that are actively utilized by a new ransomware group called Embargo.
Discover recent attacks using Lynx ransomware, a rebrand of INC, targeting multiple crucial sectors in the U.S. and UK with prevalent double-extortion tactics. Discover recent attacks using Lynx ransomware, a rebrand of INC, targeting multiple crucial sectors in the U.S. and UK with prevalent double-extortion tactics.
Event Log Talks a Lot: Identifying Human-operated Ransomware through Windows Event Logs - JPCERT/CC Eyes
The difficult part of the initial response to a human-operated ransomware attack is identifying the attack vector. You may already know from recent security incident trends that the vulnerabilities of VPN devices are likely to be exploited, but it often...
Kryptina RaaS | From Unsellable Cast-Off to Enterprise Ransomware
Kryptina's adoption by Mallox affiliates complicates malware tracking as ransomware operators blend different codebases into new variants. Kryptina evolved from a free tool on public forums to being actively used in enterprise attacks, particularly under the Mallox ransomware family. In May 2024, a Mallox affiliate leaked staging server data, revealing that their Linux ransomware was based on a modified version of Kryptina. The affiliate made superficial changes to source code and documentation, stripping Kryptina branding but retaining core functionality. The adoption of Kryptina by Mallox affiliates exemplifies the commoditization of ransomware tools, complicating malware tracking as affiliates blend different codebases into new variants. * This original research was presented by the author at LABScon 2024 in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Discover the latest insights on the emerging ransomware group Cicada3301, first detected in June 2024. Truesec's investigation reveals key findings about this group, named after a famous cryptography game, now targeting multiple victims.
Major Payment Disruption: Ransomware Strikes Indian Banking Infrastructure
CloudSEK's threat research team has uncovered a ransomware attack disrupting India's banking system, targeting banks and payment providers. Initiated through a misconfigured Jenkins server at Brontoo Technology Solutions, the attack is linked to the RansomEXX group.
Arctic Wolf Labs has observed Fog ransomware being deployed against US organizations in the education and recreation sectors.
On May 2, 2024, Arctic Wolf Labs began monitoring deployment of a new ransomware variant referred to as Fog. The ransomware activity was observed in several Arctic Wolf Incident Response cases, each exhibiting similar elements. All victim organizations were located in the United States, 80% of which were in the education sector and 20% in the recreation sector. We are sharing details of this emerging variant to help organizations defend against this threat. Please note that we may add further detail to this article as we uncover additional information in our ongoing investigation.
From Dormant to Dangerous: P2Pinfect Evolves to Deploy New Ransomware and Cryptominer
P2Pinfect is a rust-based malware covered extensively by Cado Security in the past. Cado Security researchers first discovered it during triage of honeypot telemetry in July of 2023.
IcedID Brings ScreenConnect and CSharp Streamer to ALPHV Ransomware Deployment – The DFIR Report
Key Takeaways In October 2023, we observed an intrusion that began with a spam campaign, distributing a forked IcedID loader. The threat actor used Impacket’s wmiexec and RDP to install Scree…
Analysis of TargetCompany's Attacks Against MS-SQL Servers (Mallox, BlueSky Ransomware)
While monitoring attacks targeting MS-SQL servers, AhnLab SEcurity intelligence Center (ASEC) recently identified cases of the TargetCompany ransomware group installing the Mallox ransomware. The TargetCompany ransomware group primarily targets improperly managed MS-SQL servers to install the Mallox ransomware. While these attacks have been ongoing for several years, here we will outline the correlation between the newly identified malware and previous attack cases involving the distribution of the Tor2Mine CoinMiner and BlueSky ransomware.
Interesting Multi-Stage StopCrypt Ransomware Variant Propagating in the Wild
Overview The SonicWall Capture Labs threat research team recently observed an interesting variant of StopCrypt ransomware. The ransomware executes its malicious activities by utilizing multi-stage shellcodes before launching a final payload that contains the file […]
Ransomware Retrospective 2024: Unit 42 Leak Site Analysis
Analysis of ransomware gang leak site data reveals significant activity over 2023. As groups formed — or dissolved — and tactics changed, we synthesize our findings.
The ticking time bomb of Microsoft Exchange Server 2013
I monitor (in an amateur, clueless way) ransomware groups in my spare time, to see what intelligence can be gained from looking at victim orgs and what went wrong. Basically, I’m a giant big dork with too much free time. I’ve discovered two organisations with ransomware incidents, where the entry point appears to have been Exchange Server 2013 with Outlook Web Access enabled, where all available security updates were applied.
Understanding the Phobos affiliate structure and activity
Cisco Talos identified the most prolific Phobos variants, TTPs and affiliate structure, based on their activity and analysis of over 1,000 samples from VirusTotal dating back to 2019. We assess with moderate confidence Eking, Eight, Elbie, Devos and Faust are the most common variants
Clop Ransomware: History, Timeline, And Adversary Simulation
The infamous Clop ransomware, mainly known as Cl0p, targets various industries and organizations, extorting data for a huge amount of ransom. It advances actively with new emerging campaigns. This blog walks through the Clop timeline, Mitre TTPs and their emulation.
Tracing Ransomware Threat Actors Through Stylometric Analysis and Chat Log Examination
I stumbled upon an intriguing concept presented by Will Thomas (BushidoToken) in his blog post titled “Unmasking Ransomware Using Stylometric Analysis: Shadow, 8BASE, Rancoz.” This concept revolves around utilizing stylometry to identify potential modifications in new ransomware variants based on existing popular strains. If you’re interested, you can read the blog post here. (Notably, Will Thomas also appeared on Dark Net Diaries, discussing his tracking of the Revil ransomware.)
A new recently observed ransomware family dubbed Akira uses a retro aesthetic on their victim site very reminiscent of the 1980s green screen consoles and possibly takes its namesake from the popular 1988 anime film of the same name.
in February 2023, Kaspersky technologies detected a number of attempts to execute similar elevation-of-privilege exploits on Microsoft Windows servers belonging to small and medium-sized businesses in the Middle East, in North America, and previously in Asia regions. These exploits were very similar to already known Common Log File System (CLFS) driver exploits that we analyzed previously, but we decided to double check and it was worth it – one of the exploits turned out to be a zero-day, supporting different versions and builds of Windows, including Windows 11. The exploit was highly obfuscated with more than 80% of the its code being “junk” elegantly compiled into the binary, but we quickly fully reverse-engineered it and reported our findings to Microsoft. Microsoft assigned CVE-2023-28252 to the Common Log File System elevation-of-privilege vulnerability, and a patch was released on April 11, 2023, as part of April Patch Tuesday.
New CatB Ransomware Employs 2-Year Old DLL Hijacking Technique To Evade Detection
We recently discovered ransomware, which performs MSDTC service DLL Hijacking to silently execute its payload. We have named this ransomware CatB, based on the contact email that the ransomware group uses. The sample was first uploaded to VT on November 23, 2022 and tagged by the VT community as a possible variant of the Pandora Ransomware. The assumed connection to the Pandora Ransomware was due to some similarities between the CatB and Pandora ransom notes. However, the similarities pretty much end there. The CatB ransomware implements several anti-VM techniques to verify execution on a “real machine”, followed by a malicious DLL drop and DLL hijacking to evade detection.
Mallox Ransomware showing signs of Increased Activity
“TargetCompany” is a type of ransomware that was first identified in June 2021. The researchers named it TargetCompany ransomware because it adds the targeted company name as a file extension to the encrypted files. In September 2022, researchers identified a TargetCompany ransomware variant targeting Microsoft SQL servers and adding the “Fargo” extension to the encrypted files. TargetCompany ransomware is also known to add a “Mallox” extension after encrypting the files.
Pulling the Curtains on Azov Ransomware: Not a Skidsware but Polymorphic Wiper - Check Point Research
Check Point Research (CPR) provides under-the-hood details of its analysis of the infamous Azov Ransomware * Investigation shows that Azov is capable of modifying certain 64-bit executables to execute its own code * Azov is designed to inflict impeccable damage to the infected machine it runs on * CPR sees over 17K of Azov-related samples submitted to VirusTotal
