The Week in Ransomware - January 13th 2023 - LockBit in the spotlight
The LockBit ransomware operation has again taken center stage in the ransomware news, as we learned yesterday they were behind the attack on Royal Mail. [...]
Ransomware encrypts or steals data to disrupt operations and extort victims, making backups, access controls, and incident response essential.
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Background for this topic.
Ransomware is malware used to deny access to systems or data, usually by encrypting files and demanding payment for decryption. Many operations also steal sensitive information and threaten to publish it, so an attack can create both an availability crisis and a privacy or disclosure risk. Initial access may involve phishing, stolen credentials, exposed remote services, or exploitation of unpatched vulnerabilities; attackers may then move through the network before deploying the payload.
Defenses should combine vulnerability management, phishing-resistant authentication where practical, endpoint and network monitoring, and backups that are isolated from routine administrator access and regularly tested for recovery. Organizations should also limit privileges and segment critical systems to reduce the blast radius. An incident requires rapid containment, preservation of forensic evidence, restoration from known-good backups, and assessment of notification, legal, and regulatory obligations. Threat intelligence can help identify relevant criminal infrastructure or tactics, but it does not replace sound access control, patching, detection, and recovery practices.
The LockBit ransomware operation has again taken center stage in the ransomware news, as we learned yesterday they were behind the attack on Royal Mail. [...]
A cyberattack on Royal Mail, UK's largest mail delivery service, has been linked to the LockBit ransomware operation. [...]
Microsoft says Cuba ransomware threat actors are hacking their way into victims' networks via Microsoft Exchange servers unpatched against a critical server-side request forgery (SSRF) vulnerability also exploited in Play ransomware attacks. [...]
Australia's Fire Rescue Victoria has disclosed a data breach caused by a December cyberattack that is now claimed by the Vice Society ransomware gang. [...]
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added two more security vulnerabilities to its catalog of exploited bugs today. [...]
Security researchers are warning that patching critical vulnerabilities allowing access to the network is insufficient to defend against ransomware attacks. [...]