LockBit | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

The leak of the  LockBit 3.0 ransomware  builder last year has led to threat actors abusing the tool to spawn new variants. Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky said it detected a ransomware intrusion that deployed a version of LockBit but with a markedly different ransom demand procedure. "The attacker behind this incident decided to use a different ransom note with a headline related to a previously unknown group, called NATIONAL HAZARD AGENCY," security researchers Eduardo Ovalle and Francesco Figurelli  said . The revamped ransom note directly specified the amount to be paid to obtain the decryption keys, and directed communications to a Tox service and email, unlike the LockBit group, which doesn't mention the amount and uses its own communication and negotiation platform. NATIONAL HAZARD AGENCY is far from the only cybercrime gang to use the leaked LockBit 3.0 builder. Some of the other threat actors known to leverage it include  Bl00dy and Buhti . Kaspersk

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Thursday unveiled charges against a Russian national for his alleged involvement in deploying LockBit ransomware to targets in the U.S., Asia, Europe, and Africa. Ruslan Magomedovich Astamirov, 20, of Chechen Republic has been accused of perpetrating at least five attacks between August 2020 and March 2023. He was arrested in the state of Arizona last month. "Astamirov allegedly participated in a conspiracy with other members of the LockBit ransomware campaign to commit wire fraud and to intentionally damage protected computers and make ransom demands through the use and deployment of ransomware," the DoJ  said . Astamirov, as part of his LockBit-related activities, managed various email addresses, IP addresses, and other online accounts to deploy the ransomware and communicate with the victims. Law enforcement agencies said they were able to trace a chunk of an unnamed victim's ransom payment to a virtual currency address operated by Astam

The threat actors behind the  LockBit  ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) scheme have extorted $91 million following hundreds of attacks against numerous U.S. organizations since 2020. That's according to a  joint bulletin  published by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), and other partner authorities from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, and the U.K. "The LockBit ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) attracts affiliates to use LockBit for conducting ransomware attacks, resulting in a large web of unconnected threat actors conducting wildly varying attacks," the agencies  said . LockBit, which first burst onto the scene in late 2019, has continued to be disruptive and prolific, targeting as many as 76 victims in May 2023 alone, per statistics shared by  Malwarebytes  last week. The Russia-linked cartel has claimed responsibil

The threat actors behind the nascent  Buhti  ransomware have eschewed their custom payload in favor of leaked LockBit and Babuk ransomware families to strike Windows and Linux systems. "While the group doesn't develop its own ransomware, it does utilize what appears to be one custom-developed tool, an information stealer designed to search for and archive specified file types," Symantec  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. The cybersecurity firm is tracking the cybercrime group under the name  Blacktail . Buhti was first highlighted by Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 in February 2023,  describing  it as a Golang ransomware targeting the Linux platform. Later that same month, Bitdefender revealed the use of a Windows variant that was deployed against Zoho ManageEngine products that were vulnerable to critical remote code execution flaws ( CVE-2022-47966 ). The operators have since been observed swiftly exploiting other severe bugs impacting IBM's Aspera Fasp

Iranian nation-state groups have now joined financially motivated actors in actively exploiting a critical flaw in PaperCut print management software, Microsoft disclosed over the weekend. The tech giant's threat intelligence team said it observed both Mango Sandstorm (Mercury) and Mint Sandstorm (Phosphorus) weaponizing CVE-2023-27350 in their operations to achieve initial access. "This activity shows Mint Sandstorm's continued ability to  rapidly incorporate [proof-of-concept] exploits  into their operations," Microsoft  said  in a series of tweets. On the other hand, CVE-2023-27350 exploitation activity associated with Mango Sandstorm is said to be on the lower end of the spectrum, with the state-sponsored group "using tools from prior intrusions to connect to their C2 infrastructure." It's worth noting that  Mango Sandstorm  is linked to Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and  Mint Sandstorm  is associated with the Islamic

Microsoft has confirmed that the  active exploitation of PaperCut servers  is linked to attacks that are designed to deliver Cl0p and LockBit ransomware families. The tech giant's threat intelligence team is attributing a subset of the intrusions to a financially motivated actor it tracks under the name  Lace Tempest  (formerly DEV-0950), which overlaps with other hacking groups like FIN11, TA505, and Evil Corp. "In observed attacks, Lace Tempest ran multiple PowerShell commands to deliver a TrueBot DLL, which connected to a C2 server, attempted to steal LSASS credentials, and injected the  TrueBot payload  into the conhost.exe service," Microsoft  said  in a series of tweets. The next phase of the attack entailed the deployment of Cobalt Strike Beacon implant to conduct reconnaissance, move laterally across the network using WMI, and exfiltrate files of interest via the file-sharing service MegaSync. Lace Tempest is a Cl0p ransomware affiliate that's said to hav

Threat actors behind the LockBit ransomware operation have developed new artifacts that can encrypt files on devices running Apple's macOS operating system. The development, which was  reported  by the MalwareHunterTeam over the weekend, appears to be the first time a big-game ransomware crew has created a macOS-based payload. Additional samples identified by  vx-underground  show that the macOS variant has been available since November 11, 2022, and has managed to evade detection by anti-malware engines until now. LockBit is a  prolific cybercrime crew  with ties to Russia that has been active since late 2019, with the threat actors releasing two major updates to the locker in 2021 and 2022. According to statistics  released by Malwarebytes  last week, LockBit emerged as the second most used ransomware in March 2023 after Cl0p, accounting for 93 successful attacks. An analysis of the new macOS version ("locker_Apple_M1_64") reveals that it's still a work in pr

U.S. government agencies have released a joint cybersecurity advisory detailing the indicators of compromise (IoCs) and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) associated with the notorious  LockBit 3.0 ransomware . "The LockBit 3.0 ransomware operations function as a Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) model and is a continuation of previous versions of the ransomware, LockBit 2.0, and LockBit," the authorities  said . The alert comes courtesy of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Multi-State Information Sharing & Analysis Center (MS-ISAC). Since emerging in late 2019, the  LockBit actors  have invested significant  technical efforts  to develop and fine-tune its malware, issuing two major updates — LockBit 2.0, released in mid-2021, and  LockBit 3.0 , released in June 2022. The two versions are also known as LockBit Red and LockBit Black, respectively. "LockBit 3.0 accepts addition

Today, the LockBit ransomware is the most active and successful cybercrime organization in the world. Attributed to a Russian Threat Actor, LockBit has stepped out from the shadows of the Conti ransomware group, who were disbanded in early 2022. LockBit ransomware was first discovered in September 2019 and was previously known as ABCD ransomware because of the ".abcd virus" extension first observed. LockBit operates as a Ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) model. In short, this means that affiliates make a deposit to use the tool, then split the ransom payment with the LockBit group. It has been reported that some affiliates are receiving a share as high of 75%. LockBit's operators have posted advertisements for their affiliate program on Russian-language criminal forums stating they will not operate in Russia or any CIS countries, nor will they work with English-speaking developers unless a Russian-speaking "guarantor" vouches for them.  Initial attack vectors of

A new analysis of Raspberry Robin's attack infrastructure has  revealed  that it's possible for other threat actors to repurpose the infections for their own malicious activities, making it an even more potent threat. Raspberry Robin (aka QNAP worm), attributed to a threat actor dubbed DEV-0856, is a malware that has  increasingly   come under the radar  for being used in attacks aimed at finance, government, insurance, and telecom entities. Given its use by multiple threat actors to drop a wide range of payloads such as SocGholish , Bumblebee ,  TrueBot ,  IcedID , and  LockBit  ransomware, it's believed to be a pay-per-install (PPI) botnet capable of serving next-stage malware. Raspberry Robin, notably, employs infected USB drives as a propagation mechanism and leverages breached QNAP network-attached storage (NAS) devices as first-level command-and-control (C2). Cybersecurity firm SEKOIA said it was able to identify at least eight virtual private servers (VPSs) hos

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has announced charges against a dual Russian and Canadian national for his alleged participation in  LockBit ransomware attacks  across the world. The 33-year-old Ontario resident,  Mikhail Vasiliev , has been taken into custody and is awaiting extradition to the U.S., where is likely to be sentenced for a maximum of five years in prison. Vasiliev has been charged with conspiracy to intentionally damage protected computers and to transmit ransom demands, according to a  criminal complaint  filed in the District of New Jersey. A search of the defendant's home in August and October 2022 by Canadian law enforcement unearthed a file stored on a device containing what's suspected to be a list of "prospective or historical" victims as well as screenshots of communications exchanged with "LockBitSupp" on the Tox messaging platform. Also found were a text file with instructions to deploy LockBit ransomware, the malware'

The Amadey malware is being used to deploy  LockBit 3.0 ransomware  on compromised systems, researchers have warned. "Amadey bot, the malware that is used to install LockBit, is being distributed through two methods: one using a malicious Word document file, and the other using an executable that takes the disguise of the Word file icon," AhnLab Security Emergency Response Center (ASEC)  said  in a new report published today. Amadey, first discovered in 2018, is a "criminal-to-criminal (C2C) botnet infostealer project," as  described  by the BlackBerry Research and Intelligence Team, and is offered for purchase on the criminal underground for as much as $600. While its primary function is to harvest sensitive information from the infected hosts, it further doubles up as a channel to deliver next-stage artifacts. Earlier this July, it was  spread using SmokeLoader , a malware with not-so-different features like itself. Just last month, ASEC also  found  the mal

A threat actor associated with the LockBit 3.0 ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operation has been observed abusing the Windows Defender command-line tool to decrypt and load Cobalt Strike payloads.  According to a report published by SentinelOne last week, the incident occurred after obtaining initial access via the  Log4Shell vulnerability  against an unpatched VMware Horizon Server. "Once initial access had been achieved, the threat actors performed a series of enumeration commands and attempted to run multiple post-exploitation tools, including Meterpreter, PowerShell Empire, and a new way to side-load Cobalt Strike," researchers Julio Dantas, James Haughom, and Julien Reisdorffer  said . LockBit 3.0 (aka LockBit Black), which comes with the tagline "Make Ransomware Great Again!," is the  next iteration  of the prolific  LockBit RaaS family  that emerged in June 2022 to iron out  critical weaknesses  discovered in its predecessor. It's notable for insti

LockBit ransomware attacks are constantly evolving by making use of a wide range of techniques to infect targets while also taking steps to disable endpoint security solutions. "The affiliates that use LockBit's services conduct their attacks according to their preference and use different tools and techniques to achieve their goal," Cybereason security analysts Loïc Castel and Gal Romano  said . "As the attack progresses further along the kill chain, the activities from different cases tend to converge to similar activities." LockBit, which operates on a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) model like most groups, was first observed in September 2019 and has since emerged as the most dominant ransomware strain this year, surpassing other well-known groups like  Conti ,  Hive , and  BlackCat . This involves the malware authors licensing access to affiliates, who execute the attacks in exchange for using their tools and infrastructure and earn as much as 80% of ea