In July of 2021, a new ransomware named BlackMatter emerged and was being advertised in web forums where the group was searching for compromised networks from companies with revenues of $100 million or more per year. Although they are not advertising as a Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS), the fact they are looking for “partners” is an indication that they are operating in this model.

Ransomware is having a bit of a moment. Check Point revealed that ransomware attacks increased 102% globally in H1 2021 compared to the start of the previous year, with the number of corporate ransomware victims having doubled over that same period. Average ransom payments also grew 171% from $115,123 in 2019 to $312,493 a year later. But those weren’t the amounts originally demanded by attackers. Indeed, ransomware actors wanted an average of $847,344 from their victims in 2020.

Following a leak of a cache of documents relating to the Conti ransomware group by one of its own affiliates, in the first of a two-part blog series we analyse some of the main findings and outline steps to mitigate against Conti and other ransomware variants.

Manufacturing facilities employ assembly lines, material handling systems, motors, and furnaces that all require big physical machines. Innovative trends in the manufacturing industry and the advancement of operational technology have also meant introducing computers across operation and production systems.

U.S. President Joe Biden is under pressure to take a stand against a relentless pace of cybersecurity attacks. Russian-speaking hackers have claimed accountability for a recent ransomware assault on IT management software provider Kaseya VSA. The group of Russian threat actors also referred to as the Revil Group, launched a bombshell supply-chain hit during the weekend of July 4th, 2021 against Kaseya VSA and multiple managed service providers.

First observed in 2020 and advertised on various cybercriminal forums as a 'Malware-as-a-Service' (MaaS) threat, Redline is an information stealer mainly targeting Windows' victim credentials and cryptocurrency wallets, as well as Browser information, FTP connections, game chat launchers, and OS information such as system hardware, processes names, time zone, IP, geolocation information, OS version, and default language.

The industry consensus today is that the only way to reliably end the threat of ransomware for good is to stop paying ransoms. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that they should be banned altogether. But because of a lack of public knowledge and transparency, it’s almost impossible to know the full scale of the problem to understand the right solution.

Launched in September 2019 and formerly known as 'ABCD', LockBit is a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) threat that was updated in June 2021 and improved on the group’s earlier claims of having the fastest encryption process on the ransomware scene (Figure 1). Much like other RaaS offerings, LockBit operates an affiliate profit sharing program in which up-to eighty percent of a ransom payment can be earned whilst the operators claim the remainder.

LockBit Ransomware(a.k.a. ABCD) is yet another ransomware group operating in the RaaS(Ransomware-as-a-Service) model, following the same architecture as other major threat groups, like REvil. This threat emerged in September 2019 and is still being improved by its creators. In June 2021, the LockBit group announced the release of LockBit 2.0, which included a new website hosted on the deep web, as well as a new feature to encrypt Windows domains using group policy.

Believed active since mid-2020, Conti is a big game hunter ransomware threat operated by a threat group identified as Wizard Spider and offer to affiliates as a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) offering. Following the lead of other big game hunter ransomware groups, Conti adopted the double extortion tactic, also known as 'steal, encrypt and leak', in order to apply additional pressure on victims to pay their ransom demands and avoid sensitive or confidential data being exposed.