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.
A new group, Monti, appears to have used leaked Conti code, TTPs, and infrastructure approaches to launch its own ransomware campaign.
A sweeping effort to prevent a raft of targeted cybercrime groups from posting ransomware victims' data publicly is hampering their operations, causing outages.
The initial access broker (IAB) for ransomware gangs known as UAC-0098 has targeted Ukrainian organizations in five separate phishing campaigns spanning April to August.
After a high-profile 2017 breach and a Holiday Inn ransomware hit earlier this year, IHG confirms that its booking channels and applications have been disrupted in yet another cyberattack.
Continued collaboration will help win the fight as cybersecurity remains a national priority. International and public-private cooperation is helping stem the damage from ransomware threats and cyberattacks.
A relative newcomer to the ransomware scene, the BlackCat group quickly gained notoriety and may be associated with other APT groups like Conti and DarkSide.
Hours after Los Angeles Unified School District hit with ransomware attack, CISA issued an alert that threat actors are actively targeting the education sector.
This is the fourth DeadBolt campaign this year against QNAP customers, but it differs from previous attacks in exploiting an unpatched bug instead of a known vulnerability.
Ransomware in particular poses a major threat, but security vendors say there has been an increase in Linux-targeted cryptojacking, malware, and vulnerability exploits as well, and defenders need to be ready.