On March 2nd, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) – #StopRansomware: Royal Ransomware. We highly encourage everyone in a security role to read the Advisory, as it contains recent and historically observed tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) and indicators of compromise (IOCs) associated with Royal ransomware.
Security researchers have released a new decryption tool that should come to the rescue of some victims of a modified version of the Conti ransomware, helping them to recover their encrypted data for free. Conti was one of the most notorious ransomware groups, responsible for hundreds of attacks against organisations, which netted criminals over $150 million.
The name Chaos is being used for a ransomware strain, a remote access trojan (RAT), and now a DDoS malware variant too. Talk about chaos! In this case, Sysdig’s Threat Research Team captured attacks using the Chaos variant of the Kaiji botnet malware. There is very little reported information on this malware since September 2022, perhaps because of the unfortunately chaotic naming, or simply because it is relatively new. Kaiji malware was of Chinese origin in 2020 and is written in Golang.
In November 20211 and February 2022,2 Microsoft announced that by default it would block Excel 4 and VBA macros in files that were downloaded from the internet. Following these changes, CrowdStrike Intelligence and the CrowdStrike Falcon® Complete managed detection and response team observed eCrime adversaries that had previously relied on macro execution for malware delivery adapt their tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs).
The Minneapolis public school district includes approximately 100 primary and secondary public schools. Between the many different schools, approximately 36,000 students are served by about 1,500 teachers. The district is currently suffering from a ransomware attack supposedly and is being extorted for a $1 Million payment by a ransomware gang.
BlackSnake is a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) group that first appeared in a hacking forum in August 2022, where the operators were seeking affiliates and stating that they would take 15% of the profit, which is below the typical average of 20-30%. On February 28, 2023, a new variant of BlackSnake was spotted, and is notable for having a clipper module that targets cryptocurrency users.
A major logistics company was hit by a ransomware attack at a time when it was reviewing and upgrading its cybersecurity defense. Kroll provided seamless incident response to enable the company to act quickly to mitigate and minimize the damage caused by the attack. The company also deployed Kroll Responder, Kroll’s award-winning Managed Detection and Response (MDR) solution, giving it comprehensive 24/7 visibility and management of threats and enhancing its long-term cyber resilience.
A Rootkit is a malicious program composed of malware that is created to provide prolonged root-level or privileged-level access to a computer. It remains hidden in the computer system while maintaining control of the system remotely. Rootkits have the ability to steal data, eavesdrop, change system configurations, create permanent backdoors, deactivate other security defensive programs, and conceal other types of malware.
A joint FBI and CISA advisory on Royal ransomware, Sharp Panda’s new malware variant, and an update on IceFire ransomware.
Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (ChatGPT) is now available on the official Google Chrome store as a browser extension, giving you easy access to this sophisticated chatbot. How exciting does that sound? Read the full story here.
