President Rodrigo Chaves says Costa Rica is at war with Conti hackers
The president of Costa Rica says his country is "at war", as cyber-criminals cause major disruption to IT systems of numerous government ministries. Rodrigo Chaves said hackers infiltrated 27 government institutions, including municipalities and state-run utilities.
US links Thanos and Jigsaw ransomware to 55-year-old doctor
The US Department of Justice today said that Moises Luis Zagala Gonzalez (Zagala), a 55-year-old cardiologist with French and Venezuelan citizenship residing in Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela, created and rented Jigsaw and Thanos ransomware to cybercriminals.
Ransomware-as-a-service: Understanding the cybercrime gig economy and how to protect yourself
Microsoft coined the term “human-operated ransomware” to clearly define a class of attack driven by expert humane intelligence at every step of the attack chain and culminate in intentional business disruption and extortion. In this blog, we explain the ransomware-as-a-service affiliate model and disambiguate between the attacker tools and the various threat actors at play during a security incident.
Costa Rica declares national emergency after Conti ransomware attacks
The Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves has declared a national emergency following cyber attacks from Conti ransomware group on multiple government bodies. BleepingComputer also observed Conti published most of the 672 GB dump that appears to contain data belonging to the Costa Rican government agencies. The declaration was signed into law by Chaves on Sunday, May 8th, same day as the economist and former Minister of Finance effectively became the country's 49th and current president.
New Python-based Ransomware Targeting JupyterLab Web Notebooks
Researchers have disclosed what they say is the first-ever Python-based ransomware strain specifically designed to target exposed Jupyter notebooks, a web-based interactive computing platform that allows editing and running programs via a browser. "The attackers gained initial access via misconfigured environments, then ran a ransomware script that encrypts every file on a given path on the server and deletes itself after execution to conceal the attack," Assaf Morag, a data analyst at Aqua Security, said in a report.
Ukrainian Researcher Leaks Conti Ransomware Gang Data
A Ukrainian cybersecurity researcher has released a huge batch of data that came from the internal systems of the Conti ransomware gang. The researcher released the
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.
More than 200 U.S. institutions hit with ransomware in 2022: report
More than 200 local governments, schools and hospitals in the U.S. were affected by ransomware in 2022, according to research conducted by cybersecurity firm Emsisoft. The annual “State of Ransomware in the US” report found that 105 local governments; 44 universities and colleges; 45 school districts; and 25 healthcare providers operating 290 hospitals dealt with ransomware attacks last year.
Stolen certificates in two waves of ransomware and wiper attacks | Securelist
In this report, we compare the ROADSWEEP ransomware and ZEROCLEARE wiper versions used in two waves of attacks against Albanian government organizations.
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
Endurance Ransomware Claims Breach of US Federal Government
The WatchGuard Security Team spends a lot of time chasing ransomware extortion groups throughout the dark web. So, it only fits that one of the newer ransomware extortion groups is named Endurance Ransomware. It appears this “group” is one individual known as IntelBroker, who has allegedly breached several entities of the US government and two […]
Peter is an IT manager for a technology manufacturer that got hit with a Russian ransomware strain called "Zeppelin" in May 2020. He'd been on the job less than six months, and because of the way his predecessor architected things,…
Michigan school districts reopen after three-day closure due to ransomware attack
Public schools in two Michigan counties are reopening on Thursday after a ransomware attack crippled their ability to function and closed doors to students for three days. All of the public schools in Jackson and Hillsdale counties announced their reopening on Thursday in letters to parents, assuring them that cybersecurity experts, tech officials and law enforcement worked around the clock to restore the systems following outages that began on Monday.
The settlement last week in a $100 million lawsuit over whether insurance giant Zurich should cover losses Mondelez International suffered from NotPetya may very well reshape the entire cyber insurance marketplace. Zurich initially denied claims from Mondelez after the malware, which experts estimate caused some $10 billion in damages globally, wreaked havoc on its computer networks. The insurance provider claimed an act of war exemption since it’s widely believed Russian military hackers unleashed NotPetya on a Ukrainian company before it spread around the world.
Microsoft ties Vice Society hackers to additional ransomware strains
Microsoft tied hackers with the Vice Society ransomware gang to several ransomware strains on Tuesday, noting that the group has been behind a wave of attacks on primary schools and colleges across the world.
U.S. banks processed about $1.2 billion in ransomware payments in 2021
* U.S. banks and financial institutions processed more than $1 billion in potential ransomware-related payments in 2021. * It’s a new record and almost triple the amount that was reported the previous year. * Over half the ransomware attacks are attributed to suspected Russian cyber hackers, according to a new report.
Actions to take today to mitigate cyber threats from ransomware: • Install updates for operating systems, software, and firmware as soon as they are released. • Require phishing-resistant MFA for as many services as possible. • Train users to recognize and report phishing attempts.
TommyLeaks and SchoolBoys: Two sides of the same ransomware gang
Two new extortion gangs named 'TommyLeaks' and 'SchoolBoys' are targeting companies worldwide. However, there is a catch — they are both the same ransomware gang.
