DeadLock is a ransomware family discovered in July 2025. It is notable for not being associated with any known affiliate programs and for lacking a Data Leak Site (DLS). This, combined with the limited number of reported victims, has resulted in low exposure for the group. However, Group-IB specialists have discovered an interesting use of Polygon smart contracts for proxy server address rotation or distribution.
This finding warrants public attention, especially since the abuse of this specific blockchain for malicious purposes has not been widely reported. In addition, the recent discovery of similar techniques show that the abuse of smart contracts for malicious purposes could become an emerging trend.
Read more…
Source: Group IB
Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- APT Charming Kitten Pounces on Medical Researchers
March 31, 2021
Security researchers have linked a late-2020 phishing campaign aimed at stealing credentials from 25 senior professionals at medical research organizations in the United States and Israel to an advanced persistent threat group with links to Iran called Charming Kitten. The campaign—dubbed BadBlood because of its medical focus and the history of tensions between Iran and Israel–aimed ...
- Department of Homeland Security email accounts exposed in SolarWinds hack
March 30, 2021
Email accounts belonging to US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials may have been compromised during the SolarWinds attack by Russian threat actors. The Associated Press reports that unauthorized intrusions occurred during the SolarWinds supply-chain attack. SolarWinds, the central point of entry, was compromised by threat actors in December who were able to plant a malicious Orion ...
- New survey report released: The state of industrial cybersecurity (Part 1)
March 29, 2021
The cybersecurity has been the word not only in IT world, but also in ICS/OT world. The Stuxnet targeting SCADA systems were uncovered as first ICS malware to damage nuclear plants in 2010. The Wannacry became worldwide famous ransom worm which spread on hundreds of thousands of vulnerable computers and encrypt their data in 2017. ...
- PHP Infiltrated with Backdoor Malware
March 29, 2021
The PHP project on Sunday announced that attackers were able to gain access to its main Git server, uploading two malicious commits, including a backdoor. They were discovered before they went into production. PHP is a widely used open-source scripting language often used for web development. It can be embedded into HTML. The commits were pushed ...
- Harris Federation hit by ransomware attack affecting 50 schools
March 29, 2021
The IT systems and email servers of London-based nonprofit multi-academy trust Harris Federation were taken down by a ransomware attack on Saturday. Harris Federation is an education charity running 50 Harris primary and secondary academies with 37,000 students from London and surrounding areas. The attack hit the school trust’s systems over the weekend on Saturday, March 27, ...
- Hades Ransomware Gang Exhibits Connections to Hafnium
March 29, 2021
The Hades ransomware gang has several unique characteristics that set it apart from the rest of the pack, according to researchers – including potentially having more than extortion on the to-do list. The group appears to use multiple nation-state tools and techniques. The researchers said that its investigations into the group’s cyberattacks at the end of ...