Latest cybersecurity reporting from selected sources.

Americans Extorted at Least 5 Firms, Earning $1 Million From a Medical Device MakerTwo American cybersecurity professionals who moonlighted as BlackCat ransomware gang affiliates pleaded guilty to using the crypto-locking malware to extort at least five victims in the United States, including a medical device maker that paid a cryptocurrency ransom worth over $1 million.

Malware authors have iterated on one of the premier encryptors on the market, building something even bigger and better.

MacOS data exfiltration malware poses as an update for Visual Studio code editor.

A new Rust-based macOS malware spreading as a Visual Studio update to provide backdoor access to compromised systems uses infrastructure linked to the infamous ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware gang. [...]

The U.S. Justice Department (DoJ) has officially announced the disruption of the BlackCat ransomware operation and released a decryption tool that victims can use to regain access to files locked by the malware

Ads for Slack and Cisco AnyConnect actually downloaded Nitrogen malware Affiliates of the ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware-as-a-service operation are turning to malvertising campaigns to establish an initial foothold in their victims' systems.…

Nitrogen serves as initial-access malware, using obfuscated Python libraries for stealth

The malware researchers' collective Vx-underground claimed that ALPHV/BlackCat was behind the attack against the casino giant

The cybercrime group has given its backdoor malware a facelift in an attempt to evade detection, making some bug fixes and setting itself up to deliver its latest crimeware toy, BlackCat.

A financially motivated cybercrime gang has been observed deploying BlackCat ransomware payloads on networks backdoored using a revamped Sardonic malware version. [...]

Threat actors associated with the BlackCat ransomware have been observed employing malvertising tricks to distribute rogue installers of the WinSCP file transfer application

The BlackCat ransomware group (aka ALPHV) is running malvertizing campaigns to lure people into fake pages that mimic the official website of the WinSCP file-transfer application for Windows but instead push malware-ridden installers. [...]

We found that malicious actors used malvertising to distribute malware via cloned webpages of legitimate organizations. The distribution involved a webpage of the well-known application WinSCP, an open-source Windows application for file transfer. We were able to identify that this activity led to a BlackCat (aka ALPHV) infection, and actors also used SpyBoy, a terminator that tampers with protection provided by agents.

A Rust variant of a ransomware strain known as Agenda has been observed in the wild, making it the latest malware to adopt the cross-platform programming language after BlackCat, Hive, Luna, and RansomExx

Also, Amazon's Ring footage TV shows draws criticism, US v Societ spying docs found, and more In Brief The BlackCat ransomware gang, also known as ALPHV, has allegedly broken into IT firm NJVC, a provider of services to civilian US government agencies and the Department of Defense.…

The BlackCat ransomware crew has been spotted fine-tuning their malware arsenal to fly under the radar and expand their reach

The Emotet malware is now being leveraged by ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) groups, including Quantum and BlackCat, after Conti's official retirement from the threat landscape this year

While monitoring the Emotet botnet's current activity, security researchers found that the malware is now being used by the Quantum and BlackCat ransomware gang to deploy their payloads. [...]

Kaspersky security researchers have disclosed details of a brand-new ransomware family written in Rust, making it the third strain after BlackCat and Hive to use the programming language

Plus: Cisco Umbrella flaw patched, lid blown off TeamTNT, and ICS security folks join JCDC party In brief The BlackCat ransomware gang, said to be the first-known ransomware group to successfully break into networks with Rust-written malware, has attacked at least 60 organizations globally as of March, according to the FBI.…