LockBit, a relatively new Ransomware that was first identified performing targeted attacks by Northwave Security in September 2019 veiled as.ABCD virus. The threat actors behind the ransomware were observed to be leveraging brute-force tactics and evasion-based techniques to infect computers and encrypt files until the victim pays the ransom.

LockBit enables attackers to move around a network after compromising it quickly; it exploits SMB, ARP tables, and PowerShell to proliferate the malware through an infected network.

The developers rely on third parties to spread the malware via any means the third party devises. After successfully infecting the network, the attacker redirects the victim to a payment site operated by them. The victim is then subjected to threats of data leak until the ransom is paid to the attackers.

Modus operandi of the attack

The attackers drop the payload that is hidden under the '.text' sections, evading conventional AV's mechanism from catching the file while running a scan in the disk, the file is compressed by the attackers with a unique format.

Upon being executed, the file runs a scan on the entire LAN network and attempts to establish a connection to the hosts via SMB port (445) to spread the infected file across the entire internal network.

Then in order to bypass the need for User Control, the command "C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64\DllHost.exe /Processid:{3E5FC7F9-9A51-4367-9063-A120244FBEC7}" is run by an instance of SVCHOST.exe which is running by the process DLLhost.exe.

After that, the 'backup.exe' file executes the payload and encrypts most of the victim's files, changing their extensions to 'lockbit'. In the end, leaving a ransom note under the name 'Restore-My-Files.txt' in various folders on the host.

As per sources, the top targets of LockBit were located in the U.S., the U.K, China, India, Germany, France, and Indonesia. Experts suggest that users worldwide should strengthen their security defenses. It is also recommended to store the backups of important files separately so that it's hard to be accessed through a network.

Giving insights into a particular case, Patrick Van Looy, a cybersecurity specialist for Northwave, told BleepingComputer, "In this specific case it was a classic hit and run. After gaining access through brute-forcing the VPN, the attacker almost immediately launched the ransomware (which he could with the administrator account that he had access to). It was around 1:00 AM that the initial access took place, after which the ransomware was launched, and at around 4:00 AM the attacker logged off. This was the only interaction that we have observed."

Emotet malware has been continually evolving to the levels of technically sophisticated malware that has a major role in the expansion of the cybercrime ecosystem. First discovered as a simple banking Trojan, Emotet’s roots date back to 2014 when it attempted to steal banking credentials from affected machines.

However, after going through multiple upgrades, since then, it has taken upon various roles- to exemplify, it has leveled up its threat game long ago to become a “loader”; it gathers data and sends it via an encrypted channel to its command and control (C2) servers, it also downloads modules to further the functionality.

The threat actors, actively involved in the rapid expansion of “Emotet” as a service, have devised a new method of attacking their targets by making them access infected documents. Until a while ago, the operators of Emotet have been using an iOS-themed document template in their botnet campaigns, the template informed victims that the document was created on iOS and that in order to view the content properly, he needs to ‘Enable Content’.

However, this is not the scenario anymore. In its newer campaigns, the notorious botnet is reported to be employing a new template, named ‘Red Dawn’ by Emotet expert, Joseph Roosen, for its red accent colors.

While displaying the message, “This document is protected”, the Red Dawn template informs the user that the preview is unavailable and in order to view the document, he is required to click on ‘Enable Content’ or ‘Enable Editing’ button.

After the user is being tricked into accessing the document via the steps he was asked to follow, Emotet malware gets installed on his system following the execution of macros. Once the system is successfully infected, Emotet malware may proceed to deliver other malware and ransomware namely Trickbot and Qbot or Conti and ProLock respectively.

“#Emotet AAR for 2020/09/02: Only a couple malspams at dayjob. It looks like JP is getting targeted heavily now by E1/E2 and E3. Seeing templates on all 3! The new regex for E1 is stupid and I bet Yuri thought that was epic, well nope, even easier to block, new regex in report. TT”, Joseph Roosen said in his related Tweet.

Ransomware has continually expanded both in terms of threat and reach as threat actors continue to devise fresh methods of introducing new ransomware variants and malware families. One such newly emerged ransomware that was first identified at the end of February 2020, Nefilim, threatens to release victims’ encrypted data if they are unable to pay the ransom. With a striking code resemblance to that of Nemty 2.5 revenge ransomware, Nefilim is most likely to be distributed via exposed Remote Desktop Protocol, according to Vitali Kremez, an ethical hacker at SentinelLabs.

Earlier this month, researchers from threat intelligence firm Cyble, discovered a post by the authors of Nefilim ransomware, claiming to have hacked The SPIE Group, an independent European market leader for technical services in the fields of energy. As per the claims made by the operators in the post, they are in the possession of around 11.5 GB of company’s sensitive data that include corporate operational documents- company’s telecom services contracts, dissolution legal documents, infrastructure group reconstruction contacts and a lot more.

Since April 2020, Nefilim has targeted multiple organizations around the globe, narrowing down on the regions- South Asia, South America, Oceania, North America, and Western Europe. Going by the count of attacks disclosed publicly, manufacturing comes on top as the most preferential and hence the most targeted industries by the operators of Nefilim ransomware; Mas Holdings, Fisher & Paykel, Aban Offshore Limited, Stadler Rail were some of the major targets. Other industries infiltrated by Nefilim are communication and transportation; Orange S.A. and Toll Group, Arteris SA being some of the top targets respectively. One important thing to notice here is that the ransomware has spared the healthcare and education sector entirely as of now, interestingly, no organization from the two aforementioned sectors has been targeted.

Nefilim uses a number of ways including P2P file sharing, Free software, Spam email, Torrent websites, and Malicious websites, to infiltrate organizations’ IT systems. Designed specially to penetrate Windows PCs, Nefilim actively abuses Remote Desktop Protocol and uses it as its primary attack vector to infiltrate organizations. It employs a combination of two distinct algorithms AES-128 and RSA-2048 to encrypt the target’s data that is later leaked on their websites known as Corporate Leaks- when victims’ fail to pay the ransom.

Users are advised to stay wary of exposed ports and security departments shall ensure closing off unused ports, experts have also recommended to ‘limit login attempts’ for Remote Desktop protocol network admin access from settings to stay guarded.

REvil, also known as Sodinokibi ransomware was first spotted in April 2019, it attacks Windows PCs to encrypt all the files on local drives (besides those enlisted in their configuration file) and leaves a ransom note on affected systems with instructions to get the files decrypted in turn of the demanded ransom. It shares a similar code as GandCrab ransomware and is said to be distributed by the authors of the aforementioned ransomware which saw a steep decline in its activity with the arrival of REvil. The claim regarding similarity was based on observations made by experts that point towards an identical set of techniques used in attacks, similar countries targeted, and the language.

The ransomware strain exploits an Oracle WebLogic vulnerability to elevate privileges and in order to generate and propagate encryption keys; REvil makes use of an Elliptic-curve Diffie Hellman key exchange algorithm. Let’s take a look at its latest activities.

As per sources, the ransomware tries not to attack systems belonging to Iran, Russia other countries that were once a part of the Soviet Union. However, it has affected a number of organizations across various other regions. In the year 2020, REvil attackers have limited their infection to North American and Western European organizations, targeting National Eating Disorders Association, Agromart Group, etc, and Atlas Cars, Plaza Collection, etc respectively.

The ransomware operators have developed a special interest in the manufacturing sector; food and beverage distributing businesses have seen an unprecedented number of ransomware attacks lately. The top targets from the industry include Harvest Food Distributers, Brown Forman Daniel’s, Sherwood Food Distributers, and Lion. Other industries that were heavily targeted by REvil range from media, retail, entertainment, health, IT, transport, real estate, government, energy, and non-profit.

How does it operate?

REvil begins with exploiting the CVE-2018-8453 vulnerability and proceeds to eliminate resource conflicts by terminating blacklist processes before the process of encryption. It wipes the contents of blacklisted folders and then encrypts files on local storage devices and network shares, finally exfiltrating basic host information.

Initially, REvil was noticed to be attacking businesses by exploiting vulnerabilities, But, since the past year, the operators have started employing common infection vectors namely phishing and exploit kits.

Lafayette city from Colorado had to pay a ransom amount worth $45,000 for decryption of files that were encrypted in July, as the City was unable to restore the data from the backup. The town was attacked on 27th July, and the ransomware cyberattack affected people's smartphones, emails, and payment services. During the attack, the City didn't offer any explanation about what caused the problems. It asked its people to call 911 or emergency services if they were facing trouble with the outage. After a few days of the incident, Lafayette informed the citizens that the town had suffered a cyberattack. All the systems were encrypted by the hackers, which caused the outage problem.


The City managed to recover the lost financial data, but it had to pay a ransom of $45,000 to hackers (anonymous) for retrieving data. The recipient of the payment, an unknown identity, has offered a decryption software in return for the refund. The town on its official website says, "system servers and computers are currently being cared for and rebuilt. Once complete, data will be restored to the system, and operations will resume. No permanent damage to hardware has been identified. While core City operations continue, online payment systems have not resumed. At this time, the City is unable to estimate a timeline that all systems will be back up and running."

The city Mayor Harkens decided not to reveal the attacker's identity to the people as it might compromise their negotiation terms. As per the reports, neither user data nor the credit card credentials was stolen. The mayor has advised townpeople to stay wary of any suspicious activity in their accounts.

The Lafayette town must be lucky as the hackers demanded a minimal amount of ransom in return. According to experts, in cases like these, the ransom demand can go from a hundred thousand to millions of dollars. "System servers and computers are currently being cleaned and rebuilt. Once complete, data will be restored to the system, and operations will resume. No permanent damage to hardware has been identified," says the town's website.

WastedLocker has been in the highlights for a successful attack on wearable tech and smartwatch manufacturer Garmin and was paid around 10 million for a decryption key. The ransomware is rumored to be working for the Russian Hacking group Evil Corp, a notorious hacking crew with numerous high profile attacks in their resume.


But the security researchers at Sophos discovered how the ransomware was using the inner workings of Windows to avoid detection by anti-ransomware tools and the method they say is quite ingenious and sophisticated.

 "That's really sophisticated stuff, you're digging way down into the things that only the people who wrote the internals of Windows should have a concept of, how the mechanisms might work and how they can confuse security tools and anti-ransomware detection," Chester Wisniewski, a principal research scientist at Sophos said.
How WastedLocker uses Windows Cache to hide itself 

Usually, anti-ransomware softwares monitor Operating System files for any suspicious behavior like an unknown process performing various functions like opening a file, writing to it, and then closing the file - it will trigger behavior detection and catch any malicious file. But WastedLocker, unlike other traditional ransomware stores the files on Windows Cache and operates from that file and not the original.

 Windows cache to speed up processes, stores commonly used files in it so as when the system requires a command, it first checks for the file in the cache and load it from there rather than the drive making the operation much faster.

 This ransomware opens a file in the Cache, read it there and close the original file. The software will now encrypt the file stored on the cache and not the original. When many changes are done on the file, the file becomes "dirty" and Windows Cache updates the original file with the changes. Since all these commands are done by a legitimate source and Windows itself - it tricks the detection software into believing the process is a system originated and legit thereby bypassing exposure.

 This ability to go undetected makes WastedLocker the most lethal ransomware we have seen yet.

Aberystwyth University, a 148-year-old mid-Wales institution was attacked via a hack on Blackbaud, a US company that deals with education financial management and administration software.

 It was among the 20 institutions that were affected by the ransomware attack including the University of York, Loughborough University, University of London, and University College, Oxford. The welsh university with an influx of 10,000 students every year said, "no bank account or credit card details were taken".

 The ransomware attack occurred around May of this year and targeted Blackbaud which is associated with many education institutes thereby the attack sent shockwaves to at least twenty institutes from the US, UK, and Canada. The company did end up paying the ransom and said that, "confirmation that the copy [of data] they removed had been destroyed" but they were criticized for not informing about the hack and data risk to the victims until July that is after a month of the attack.

According to the law, under General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) the company is supposed to report a significant data breach to data authorities within 72 hours. Both the UK and Canada data authorities were made aware of a data breach only last week.

 ICO (UK's Information Commissioner's Office) spokeswoman said: "Blackbaud has reported an incident affecting multiple data controllers to the ICO. We will be making inquiries to both Blackbaud and the respective controllers, and encourage all affected controllers to evaluate whether they need to report the incident to the ICO individually."

 Impact on Aberystwyth University

 The 148-year-old institute in Wales reassured that no student data was affected and the "stolen data has now been destroyed and has no reason to believe it was misused".

 Blackbaud confirmed to the university that no financial details of bank or credit were taken. A spokesperson from the university said, "We take data security extremely seriously. We are urgently investigating this incident and are awaiting further details from Blackbaud.

 "We are in the process of contacting those online portal users and recipients of our alumni and supporter e-newsletters whom we believe may have been affected."  

While commenting on the security incident, Javvad Malik, Security Awareness Advocate at KnowBe4, said that in these times, it is essential, "that organizations put in place controls to prevent the attack from being successful, as even if they have backups from which they can restore, this won't bring back data that has been stolen."

"As part of this, organizations should implement a layered defensive strategy, in particular against credential stuffing, exploitation of unpatched systems, and phishing emails which are the main source of ransomware. This includes having technical controls, the right procedures, and ensuring staff has relevant and timely security awareness and training," he further added.

In a survey of 26 countries for public Cloud security incidents, India emerges as the nation which endured the hardest hits the previous year with 93 percent of the nation's organizations encountering the problem.

The survey included more than 3,500 IT managers across 26 nations in Europe, the Americas, Asia Pacific, the Center East, and Africa that currently host data and workloads at hand in the Public Cloud.

The cybersecurity incidents that Indian organizations suffered most included ransomware (53 percent) and other malware (49 percent), exposed data (49 percent), compromised accounts (48 percent), and cryptojacking (36 percent), said the report titled "The State of Cloud Security 2020" by cybersecurity company Sophos.

While Europeans seem to have endured the least level of security incidents in the Cloud, an indicator that compliance with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) guidelines are assisting with protecting organizations from being undermined.

However, India still hasn't enforced a data protection law.

Chester Wisniewski, Principal Research Scientist at Sophos said in a statement, "Ransomware, not surprisingly, is one of the most widely reported cybercrimes in the public Cloud."

 "The recent increase in remote working provides extra motivation to disable Cloud infrastructure that is being relied on more than ever, so it's worrisome that many organizations still don't understand their responsibility in securing Cloud data and workloads," Wisniewski added later.

"Cloud security is a shared responsibility, and organizations need to carefully manage and monitor Cloud environments in order to stay one step ahead of determined attackers."

According to the report, more than 55 percent of Indian organizations and businesses revealed that cybercriminals obtained access through the stolen Cloud provider account credentials.

Regardless of this, only 29 percent said managing access to Cloud accounts is a top area of concern. Albeit 'accidental exposure' keeps on plaguing organizations, with misconfigurations exploited in 44 percent of reported attacks on Indian organizations.

With 76 percent of organizations utilizing the Public Cloud, detection and response are driving the Cloud security concern for IT managers in India while data security still stays as a top concern across the world for organizations.

Hackers demanding ransom released data, as the IndiaBull failed to meet the first ransom deadline. It happened after a 24-hour ransomware warning was issued, and when the party was unable to make ends meet, the hackers dumped the data. According to Cyble, a Singapore based cybersecurity agency, the hackers have threatened to dump more data after the second deadline ends. The hackers are using ransomware, which the experts have identified as "CLOP."


The hackers stole the data from IndiaBulls and released around 5 Gb of personal data containing confidential files and customer information, banking details, and employee data. It came as a warning from the hackers, in an attempt to threaten the other party, says a private cybersecurity agency.

About the data leak-
The dumped data resulted in exposing confidential client KYC details like Adhaar card, passport details, Pan card details, and voting card details. The leak also revealed personal employee information like official ID, contact details, passwords, and codes that granted access permission to the company's online banking service. The IndiaBulls' spokesman said that the company was informed about the compromise of its systems on Monday; however, the data leaked is not sensitive. When asked about the data leak incident that happened on Wednesday, he said that the company had nothing to say.

The cybersecurity agency, however, tells a different story. It says that the spokesperson's information is incorrect as the attack did not happen on Monday. It also says that it requires some time to carry out such an attack, in other words, the transition phase from initial attack to extortion. The company may have been confused or misguided, say the cybersecurity experts. In a ransomware attack, the hacker makes it impossible for the user to access the files by encrypting them. Most of the time, the motive behind the ransomware threat is money, which is quite the opposite of state-sponsored hackers, whose aim is to affect the systems. In the IndiaBulls' incident, hackers encrypted the files using CLOP ransomware. It is yet to confirm how the hackers pulled this off, but according to Cyble, it was mainly due to vulnerabilities in the company's VPN.

May 2020 was not a good month for both the Texas Courts and the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) as the month marked the discovery of a new ransomware called Ransom X, being effectively utilized in human-operated and focused on attacks against government agencies and enterprises.

Advanced Intel's Vitali Kremez discovered a 'ransom.exx' which was believed to be the name of the ransomware. As this is human-operated ransomware, as opposed to one distributed by means of phishing or malware, when executed the ransomware opens a console that shows info to the attacker while it is running.

As indicated by Kremez, Ransom.exx works to terminate 289 procedures identified with security software, database servers, MSP softwares, remote access devices, and mail servers.

Ransom X will likewise play out a series of orders all through the encryption process that:
Clear Windows event logs
Delete NTFS journals
Disable System Restore
Disable the Windows Recovery Environment
Delete Windows backup catalogs
Wipe free space from local drives.

The commands executed are listed below:
cipher /w %
s wbadmin.exe delete catalog –quiet 
bcdedit.exe /set {default} recoveryenabled no 
bcdedit.exe /set {default} bootstatuspolicy ignoreallfailures 
schtasks.exe /Change /TN "\Microsoft\Windows\SystemRestore\SR" /disable 
wevtutil.exe cl Application 
wevtutil.exe cl System 
wevtutil.exe cl Setup 
wevtutil.exe cl Security 
wevtutil.exe sl Security 
/e:false fsutil.exe usn deletejournal /D C: 

The ransomware then starts to encrypt the entirety of the information on the computer and affix a custom extension related to the victim to each encrypted record.

As observed below, the custom extension for the Texas Department of Transportation attack was .txd0t.


Furthermore, when completed, the Ransom X console will show the number of encoded files and how long it took to finish it. In every folder that was scanned during the encryption procedure, a ransom note named![extension]_READ_ME!.txt will be made.

This ransom note incorporates the company name, and email address to contact, and guidelines on the most proficient method to pay the ransom.

As observed below, the ransom note is modified for a certain victim that is enduring an attack, which for this situation is the Texas Department of Transportation.


However, in the case of Texas where the attack made its significant hit it is to be noted that at the hour of the attack, it was not comprehended what ransomware focused on the government agencies.

In any case, because of the limited visibility into this ransomware operation, there is no data with respect to the ransom sums or whether they steal information as a major aspect of the attack.

This ransomware has now been broken down, analyzed, and seems secure, which implies that it is highly unlikely to decrypt the files for nothing.

Leading IT services company, Cognizant was hit by a Maze Ransomware attack earlier in April this year that made headlines for its severity as the company confirmed undergoing a loss of $50-$70 million in their revenues. In the wake of the ransomware attack, Cognizant issued an email advisory alerting its clients to be extra secure by disconnecting themselves for as long as the incident persists.

Cognizant is one of the global leading IT services company headquartered in New Jersey (US). It started in 1994 as a service provider to Dun & Bradstreet companies worldwide; later in 1998, it became independent when D&B split into three, and one group of companies came under Cognizant corporation. Since then, the company has grown leaps and bounds making a name for its consulting and operation services in the industry.

The threat actors involved carried out the attack somewhere between 9-11 April, during this period of three days when the company was facing service disruptions, the operators mined a considerable amount of unencrypted data that included credit card details, tax identification numbers, social security numbers, passport data, and driving license information of the employees.

While giving further insights into the security incident, Cognizant said in its SEC filing, “Based on the investigation to date, we believe the attack principally impacted certain of our systems and data.”

“The attack resulted in unauthorized access to certain data and caused significant disruption to our business. This included the disabling of some of our systems and disruption caused by our taking certain other internal systems and networks offline as a precautionary measure."

“The attack compounded the challenges we face in enabling work-from-home arrangements during the COVID-19 pandemic and resulted in setbacks and delays to such efforts,” the filing read.

“The impact to clients and their responses to the security incident have varied,” the company added.

Ransomware are soon becoming the most feared disease of cyber-world, started from simple encryption of the victim's computer and files, they have now evolved to stealing and selling data. But it's not limited to just that, now these stolen data will be auctioned off to the highest bidder if the ransom is not paid.


Sodinokibi/REvil group recently launched its auction website from its own blog. Their first debut was an auction of files retrieved (stolen) from a Canadian agriculture company whose ransom was not paid. The starting bid - $50,000 Monero cryptocurrency.

These auction websites are quite beneficial for these hackers, first by creating potential of monetization and second by putting additional pressure on the victims to pay up the ransom. Even governments and cybersecurity vendors spend millions for this kind of data, employing people to lurk the dark web for sensitive data on elite class. Now, they can directly buy this from these auction sites.

The REvil group was also rumored to sell files on pop singer Madonna which they hacked from entertainment law firm Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks.

Brett Callow, a threat analyst at Emsisoft says, “The auctions may be less about directly creating revenue than they are about upping the ante for future victims. Having their data published on an obscure site is bad enough, but the prospect of it being auctioned and sold to competitors or other criminal enterprises may chill companies to the bone and provide them with an additional incentive to meet the criminals’ demands.” 

He further thinks that soon other ransomware groups will follow REvil with their own auction schemes.

“REvil’s launch of [an] online auction was, in many ways, a logical and inevitable progression as ransomware groups constantly seek out new ways to monetize attacks and apply additional pressure to companies,” Callow said. “In the same way that other ransomware groups adopted [the Maze ransomware group’s] encrypt-and-exfiltrate strategy, it’s almost inevitable that other groups will also adopt REvil’s encrypt-exfiltrate-and-auction strategy.”

Joining Forces

Another tactic by these groups is joining forces, the idea of helping each other, and increasing their threat value. The infamous Maze ransomware has partnered with LockBit (not many financial details have been shared) and they even published LockBut's stolen data on their own data leak website.

Maze also announced that they are in talks with another ransomware group and may collaborate with a third ransomware operation.

What was once a simple piece of malware discovered just 20 years ago this month exhibited its capacity which transformed the entire universe of cyber-security that we know of today?

Initially expected to just harvest the passwords of a couple of local internet providers, the malware, dubbed as 'LoveBug' spread far and wide, infecting more than 45 million devices to turn into the first piece of malware to truly take businesses offline.

LoveBug was the shift of malware from a constrained exposure to mass demolition. 45 million compromised devices daily could rise to 45 million daily payments.

Be that as it may, eleven years before anybody had known about LoveBug, the IT industry saw the first-ever main case of ransomware, as AIDS Trojan. AIDS Trojan which spread through infected floppy disks sent to HIV specialists as a feature of a knowledge-sharing activity.

The 'lovechild' of LoveBug and AIDS Trojan was the ransomware that followed, with GPCoder and Archievus hitting organizations around the globe through which the hackers additionally bridled ecommerce sites to discover better ways to receive payments.

The protection industry responded by taking necessary steps with 'good actors' cooperating to decipher the encryption code on which Archievus depended, and sharing it broadly to assist victim with abstaining from paying any ransom.

From that point forward the 'cat and mouse' game has proceeded with viruses like CryptoLocker, CryptoDefense, and CryptoLocker2.0 constructing new attack strategies, and the protection industry executing new defenses. Presently ransomware has become increasingly sophisticated and progressively prevalent as targets today are more averse to be individuals since large businesses can pay enormous sums of cash.

And yet, data protection has become progressively sophisticated as well, with certain four areas that should now be a part of each business' ransomware strategy: protect, detect, respond, and recover. Social engineering and phishing are also presently becoming progressively central to the success of a ransomware attack.

The LoveBug was effective in a scattergun fashion, yet at the same time depended on social engineering.

Had individuals been less disposed to open an email with the subject line ‘I love you', the spread of the malware would have been 'far more limited'.

Nevertheless, the users presently ought to be more alert of the increasingly diverse threats in light of the fact that inexorably, hackers are expanding their threats data exfiltration or public exposure on the off chance that they feel that leaking data may be progressively 'persuasive' for their targets.

Thus so as to react to the issue, it's essential to have backup copies of data and to comprehend the nature and estimation of the information that may have been undermined in any way.

Romanian law enforcement officials stopped the activities of the cybercriminal group PentaGuard, which was preparing to carry out attacks on Romanian hospitals using ransomware.

Four hackers were arrested, and searches were conducted at their place of residence (at three addresses in Romania and one address in Moldova). According to the Romanian Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT), hackers had various malicious programs at their disposal, including Trojans for remote access, ransomware, as well as tools for defacing sites and SQL injections.

In addition, hackers developed malicious computer applications for use in computer attacks, such as rasomware-cryptolocker and RAT (Remote Trojan Access). Such malicious attacks were directed against several state institutions, as in Bucharest.

During the investigation, it became clear that cybercriminals planned to attack hospitals. The attackers intended to send phishing emails on the subject of COVID-19 to medical institutions, and use them to infect networks with ransomware Locky or BadRabbit, encrypt files and demand a ransom for recovery. According to the Romanian media, this is how the cybercriminals wanted to protest against the quarantine measures taken by the Romanian government.

This type of attack makes it possible to block and seriously disrupt the functioning of the IT infrastructure of these hospitals. They are part of the healthcare system, which currently plays a decisive and decisive role in combating the pandemic with the new coronavirus.

The hacker group PentaGuard has existed since about 2000. In January 2001, the group carried out a massive deface of the sites of the British and Australian governments. Over the past few years, PentaGuard has not conducted any deface campaigns but has remained active on hacker forums. In January 2020, the group resumed defacing attacks.

'Human-operated ransomware' has been on a rise with the emergence of ProLock in the month of March, the new ransomware came as a successor to 'PwndLocker', another variant of malware targeting all the major industries from finance, retail to healthcare and governmental organizations as well. Notably, in late April, the attack targeting the largest ATM provider in the United States, Diebold Nixdorf was the first major attack carried by ProLock where the attackers only compromised the company's corporate network while their ATMs and customer networks were left untouched, according to the media reports.

In order to acquire access to targets' networks, ProLock has joined hands with financial malware primarily targeting businesses, QakBot. Since its initial online fraud attacks, the banking trojan has constantly evolved to specialize in SOCKS proxy, anti-research capabilities and to effectively steal victims' online banking credentials. The malware has been upgraded so much so that one of its present variants can even incapacitate securing software functioning at the endpoints. Interestingly, the assistance of QakBot that distinguishes the malware from other ransomware operators further strengthens the operations of ProLock as it helps the malware with credential dumping and anti-detection techniques.

ProLock makes use of RDP and QakBot to set the attack into motion, it assists the threat actors in evading detection and with persistence. Researchers told QBot specializes in bypassing detection as it is programmed to check out for its latest version and replace its current version with the newest one. Meanwhile, in order to acquire persistence in the network, the attackers use authentic accounts for RDP. RDP allows the malware to move laterally across networks and accumulate data, which later is exfiltrated through a command-line tool. Side by side, the files are being encrypted by ProLock that adds a .proLock, .pr0Lock or .proL0ck extension to all the encrypted files and leaves a ransom note demanding a ransom in turn for their data. However, as of now, ProLock doesn't have a website to publish victims' stolen data in case they are denied ransom.

“ProLock uses many similar techniques as other ransomware operators to achieve their goals,” said Oleg Skulkin, senior digital forensics analyst at Group-IB in a recent analysis. “At the same time, however, the group does have its own unique approach. With more and more cybercrime groups showing interest in enterprise ransomware deployment campaigns, some operators may be involved in deploying different ransomware families, so we’ll likely see more overlaps in tactics, techniques, and procedures.”

SeaChange, a leading supplier of video delivery software solutions has been attacked by the authors of Sodinokibi ransomware. Reportedly, the operators have published images of the data they claim to have obtained after encrypting the systems and are threatening the Waltham, Massachusets based company to leak the stolen data.

SeaChange International has offices in Poland and Brazil, it is a remotely managed video solution provider with around 50 million subscribers across the globe. BBC, DISH, COX, DNA, Quickline, RCN, and Starhub are a few names amongst their 200+ video provider customers.

The cybercriminals behind Sodinokibi ransomware have been actively involved in posting illegally obtained data of victims onto their leak website since 2019 and then demanding a ransom for the release of the same. Lately, attackers have increasingly employed this strategy of building pressure on non-paying victims and converting them into a paying one by releasing the stolen data bit by bit, starting from smaller parts.

In this particular case, the attackers created a webpage by the company's name and published the images of the allegedly stolen data on that page, it contained a screenshot of folders on one of the SeaChange's servers targeted by the attackers, a driver's license, insurance certificates and a cover letter for a proposal sent to Pentagon for video-on-demand service. However, the operators did not specify the ransom amount at that time.

While denying to provide further data, Sodinokibi operators said, "Thank you for your interest and your questions, but I really can't answer. We publish confidential information about companies if they ignore us for a long time or decide not to pay. Otherwise, we are not ready to share any information about them in their own interests, including share which companies we have encrypted, how much data we have stolen, etc."

In addition to all the reasons ransomware were already dangerous and compulsive, there’s another one that the recent operators are employing to scare the wits out of their targets.

Cyber-criminals now tend to be threatening their victims with publishing and compromising their stolen data if the ransom doesn’t get paid or any other conditions aren’t followed through with.

The tactic in question is referred to as “Double Extortion” and quite aptly so. Per sources, its usage emerged in the latter half of 2019 apparently in use, by the Sodinokibi, DopplePaymer and Clop ransomware families.

Double extortion is all about doubling the malicious impact a normal ransomware attack could create. So the cyber-criminals try and stack up all sorts of pressure on the victims in the form of leaked information on the dark web, etc.

They just want to make sure that the victims are left with no other option but to pay the ransom and meet all the conditions of the attack, no matter how outrageous they are.

The pattern of Double Extortion was tracked after a well-known security staffing company from America experienced the “Maze ransomware” attack and didn’t pay up the 300 Bitcoin which totaled up to $2.3 Million. Even after they were threatened that their stolen email data and domain name certificates would be used for impersonating the company!

Per sources, all of the threatening wasn’t without proof. The attackers released 700 MB of data which allegedly was only 10% of what they had wrested from the company! And what’s more, they HIKED the ransom demand by 50%!

According to sources, the Maze ransomware group has a website especially fabricated to release data of the disobliging organizations and parties that don’t accept their highly interesting “deals” in exchange for the data.

Reportedly, ranging from extra sensitive to averagely confidential data of dozens of companies and firms from all the industries has found its way to the Maze ransomware website.

Clearly impressed by it many other operators of similar intentions opened up their own versions of the above-mentioned website to carry forward their “business” of threatening companies for digital currency and whatnot! They sure seem to have a good sense of humor because per sources the blog names are the likes of “Happy Blog”.

Per reports, the Sodinokibi ransomware bullied to leak a complete database from the global currency exchange, Travelex. The company had to pay $2.3 Million worth Bitcoin to get the attackers to bring their company back online.


Per reports of the researchers, the attackers would always release some kind of proof that they have the extremely valuable data of the company, before publishing it, to give the company a fair chance at paying up the ransom demanded.

Usually, these attacks are a win-win for the attackers and a “lose-lose” for the victims because if they decide not to pay up they would be putting their company in a very dangerous situation with all the valuable data compromised online for anyone to exploit, they would have to report the breach and they would have to pay a considerably high fine to the data privacy regulator. And if they pay up, they would be losing a giant plop of money! And sadly the latter feels like a better option.

Hospitals happen to be the organizations that are the most vulnerable to these attacks because of all the sensitive health-related data their databases are jam-packed with on any other day and additionally due to the Coronavirus outbreak.

The organizations could always follow the most widely adapted multi-layered security measures for keeping their data safe obviously including updating systems, keeping backups and keeping data protected in any way they possibly can.

The most conscientious gangs of the many ransomware families, per sources, have promised to not attack hospitals amidst this pandemic. But that doesn’t stop the other mal-actors from employing cyber-attacks.

The cyber-crime forecasters have mentioned that the year 2020 would be quite a difficult year for these organizations what with the lock-down and no easier (malicious) way to earn money, apparently? Food for thought!

What’s visible is the decrypted contents of the previous file, which look as expected.



Well, thankfully the ransomware encryption was easily and quickly reverted without paying the $10 fee.

But the question that still stands strong is that since it’s so easy to reverse this infection, ‘Did someone ever even end up paying the attacker?’

The answer to which can be found if we take a look at the bitcoin wallet address



Fortunately, it appears that there were no transactions on this wallet. Ideally, that implies that none of the infected sites wound up paying the ransom and had the option to return the malignant file without issues.

In any case, this being observed the Ransomware attacks ought to never be trifled with as in the United States alone, potential expenses surpassed $7.5 billion in 2019. What's more, much like other ransom included crimes, but still, there's no guarantee that paying a ransom will end in a positive result.