Turns out the fastest way to get a company to consider paying a ransom isn’t calling the CEO – it’s targeting the 46-year-old IT manager.
That’s according to Zscaler, whose ThreatLabz researchers tracked 351 victims across 334 organizations caught up in a single ransomware campaign over the course of a month.
The data suggests today’s ransomware crews have become oddly specific about their preferred victim profile: nearly two-thirds of victims held manager-level titles or above, the average victim was a 46-year-old Gen Xer, and three-quarters worked in accounting and finance, sales, operations, HR, or marketing. Half worked in the industrial or IT sectors.
Read more…
Source: The Register News
Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- Protecting Android clipboard content from unintended exposure
March 6, 2023
Considering mobile users often use the clipboard to copy and paste sensitive information, like passwords or payment information, clipboard contents can be an attractive target for cyberattacks. Leveraging clipboards can enable attackers to collect target information and exfiltrate useful data. Examples even exist of attackers hijacking and replacing the clipboard contents for malicious purposes, such as modifying a copied ...
- Threat landscape for industrial automation systems for H2 2022
March 6, 2023
In H2 2022, the percentage of ICS computers on which malicious objects were blocked increased by 3.5 percentage points compared to the previous six-month period, reaching 34.3%. This was higher than the percentages for 2021 and even 2020. Read more… Source: Kaspersky
- DoppelPaymer ransomware suspects cuffed, alleged ringleaders escape
March 6, 2023
German and Ukrainian cops have arrested suspected members of the DoppelPaymer ransomware crew and issued warrants for three other “masterminds” behind the global operation that extorted tens of millions of dollars and may have led to the death of a hospital patient. The criminal gang, also known as Indrik Spider, Double Spider and Grief, used double-extortion ...
- Spike in LokiBot Activity During Final Week of 2022
March 3, 2023
Unit 42 researchers have uncovered a malware distribution campaign that is delivering the LokiBot information stealer via business email compromise (BEC) phishing emails. This malware is designed to steal sensitive information from victims’ systems, such as passwords and banking information, as well as other sensitive data. In this blog, Unit 42 researchers will explain how attackers used ...
- Managed XDR Exposes Spear-Phishing Campaign Targeting Hospitality Industry Using RedLine Stealer
March 2, 2023
Recently, Trend Micro researchers noticed a spike in the number of emails received by one of our customers. After further investigation, they found that three other customers in the hospitality industry were also affected. The researchers observed that most of the emails had subject lines that attempt to catch victims’ attention: “help,” “requesting for assistance,” ...
- Subdomain Reputation: Detecting Malicious Subdomains of Public Apex Domains
March 2, 2023
Cybercriminals regularly leverage popular dynamic domain name system (DDNS) or web hosting services to store and distribute their content. Threat actors leverage these for command and control (C2), malware distribution and phishing. This abuse has created the need for new detection methods for malicious subdomains. DDNS and web hosting services often allow people to serve content ...
