Arctic Wolf Observes July 2025 Uptick in Akira Ransomware Activity Targeting SonicWall SSL VPN


In late July 2025, Arctic Wolf observed an increase in ransomware activity targeting SonicWall firewall devices for initial access. In the intrusions reviewed, multiple pre-ransomware intrusions were observed within a short period of time, each involving VPN access through SonicWall SSL VPNs.

While credential access through brute force, dictionary attacks, and credential stuffing have not yet been definitively ruled out in all cases, available evidence points to the existence of a zero-day vulnerability. In some instances, fully patched SonicWall devices were affected following credential rotation. Despite TOTP MFA being enabled, accounts were still compromised in some instances.

Read more…
Source: Arctic Wolf


Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox


Related:

  • CISA Issues Binding Operational Directive 23-01: Improving Asset Visibility and Vulnerability Detection on Federal Networks

    October 3, 2022

    CISA has issued Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 23-01: Improving Asset Visibility and Vulnerability Detection on Federal Networks, which seeks improve asset visibility and vulnerability enumeration across the federal enterprise. Although BOD 23-01 is only applicable to federal civilian executive branch (FCEB) agencies, CISA recommends all stakeholders review and incorporate the standards it sets forth. Doing so ...

  • Sophos fixes critical firewall hole exploited by miscreants

    September 28, 2022

    A critical code-injection vulnerability in Sophos Firewall has been fixed — but not before miscreants found and exploited the bug. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2022-3236, exists in the User Portal and Webadmin components of the firewall in versions 19.0 and older. While it hasn’t been issued a CVSS severity score, Sophos deemed it “critical” and noted ...

  • Domain Shadowing: A Stealthy Use of DNS Compromise for Cybercrime

    September 21, 2022

    Cybercriminals compromise domain names to attack the owners or users of the domains directly, or use them for various nefarious endeavors, including phishing, malware distribution, and command and control (C2) operations. A special case of DNS hijacking is called domain shadowing, where attackers stealthily create malicious subdomains under compromised domain names. Shadowed domains do not ...

  • MFA Fatigue: Hackers’ new favorite tactic in high-profile breaches

    September 20, 2022

    Hackers are more frequently using social engineering attacks to gain access to corporate credentials and breach large networks. One component of these attacks that is becoming more popular with the rise of multi-factor authentication is a technique called MFA Fatigue. When breaching corporate networks, hackers commonly use stolen employee login credentials to access VPNs and the ...

  • Mirai Variant MooBot Targeting D-Link Devices

    September 6, 2022

    In early August, Unit 42 researchers discovered attacks leveraging several vulnerabilities in devices made by D-Link, a company that specializes in network and connectivity products. The vulnerabilities exploited include: CVE-2015-2051: D-Link HNAP SOAPAction Header Command Execution Vulnerability CVE-2018-6530: D-Link SOAP Interface Remote Code Execution Vulnerability CVE-2022-26258: D-Link Remote Command Execution Vulnerability CVE-2022-28958: D-Link Remote Command Execution Vulnerability If the devices ...

  • Two years on, Apple iOS VPNs still leak IP addresses

    August 19, 2022

    Apple has left a VPN bypass vulnerability in iOS unfixed for at least two years, leaving identifying IP traffic data exposed, and there’s no sign of a fix. Back in early 2020, secure mail provider ProtonMail reported a flaw in Apple’s iOS version 13.3.1 that prevented VPNs from encrypting all traffic. The issue was that the ...