Federal prosecutors charged a UK teenager with conspiracy to commit computer fraud and other crimes in connection with the network intrusions of 47 US companies that generated more than $115 million in ransomware payments over a three-year span. A criminal complaint unsealed on Thursday (PDF) said that Thalha Jubair, 19, of London, was part of… Read More »
Amid Ascension’s decision not to discuss the attack, there aren’t enough details to provide a complete autopsy of Ascension’s missteps and the measures the company could have taken to prevent the network breach. In general, though, the one-two pivot indicates a failure to follow various well-established security approaches. One of them is known as security… Read More »
A prominent US senator has called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Microsoft for “gross cybersecurity negligence,” citing the company’s continued use of an obsolete and vulnerable form of encryption that Windows uses by default. In a letter to FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, Sen. Ron Wyden (D–Ore.) said an investigation his office conducted into… Read More »
Talos said Chaos is likely either a rebranding of the BlackSuit ransomware or is operated by some of the former BlackSuit members. Talos based its assessment on the similarities in the encryption mechanisms in the ransomware, the theme and structure of the ransom notes, the remote monitoring and management tools used to access targeted networks,… Read More »
Authorities in Europe have detained five people, including a former Russian professional basketball player, in connection with crime syndicates responsible for ransomware attacks. Until recently, one of the suspects, Daniil Kasatkin, played for MBA Moscow, a basketball team that’s part of the VTB United League, which includes teams from Russia and other Eastern European countries.… Read More »
Stern’s eminence within Russian cybercrime has been widely documented. The cryptocurrency-tracing firm Chainalysis does not publicly name cybercriminal actors and declined to comment on BKA’s identification, but the company emphasized that the Stern persona alone is one of the all-time most profitable ransomware actors it tracks. “The investigation revealed that Stern generated significant revenues from… Read More »
A leak of 190,000 chat messages traded among members of the Black Basta ransomware group shows that it’s a highly structured and mostly efficient organization staffed by personnel with expertise in various specialities, including exploit development, infrastructure optimization, social engineering, and more. The trove of records was first posted to file-sharing site MEGA. The messages,… Read More »
Researchers who have read the Russian-language texts said they exposed internal rifts in the secretive organization that have escalated since one of its leaders was arrested because it increases the threat of other members being tracked down as well. The heightened tensions have contributed to growing rifts between the current leader, believed to be Oleg… Read More »
In December, roughly a dozen employees inside a manufacturing company received a tsunami of phishing messages that was so big they were unable to perform their day-to-day functions. A little over an hour later, the people behind the email flood had burrowed into the nether reaches of the company’s network. This is a story about… Read More »
While the decline in payments during the second half of 2024 is significant for being the largest ever in Chainalysis’ data, the number of ransomware attacks and volume of payments has fluctuated and declined before. Notably, researchers saw a marked decrease in activity in 2022, a year in which Chainalysis placed total ransomware payments at… Read More »