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:
- Iranian state-run live TV hacked by protesters
October 9, 2022
Iran’s state-run broadcaster was apparently hacked on air Saturday, with a news bulletin interrupted by a protest against the country’s leader. A mask appeared on the screen, followed by an image of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei with flames around him. The group called itself “Adalat Ali”, or Ali’s Justice. Read more… Source: BBC News
- Pro-Iranian hackers attack Israeli gas company website
October 9, 2022
Iraqi hacker group “al-Tahara” attacked the websites for two natural gas companies. The first, Energean, is an international company which has done extensive business with Israel, having acquired the Karish and Tanin natural gas fields from Delek Drilling and Avner Oil in 2016. The second, Israel Natural Gas Lines, is a corporation owned by the Israeli ...
- ADATA denies RansomHouse cyberattack, says leaked data from 2021 breach
October 8, 2022
Taiwanese chip maker ADATA denies claims of a RansomHouse cyberattack after the threat actors began posting stolen files on their data leak site. The RansomHouse gang added ADATA files to their data leak site on Tuesday, claiming they stole 1TB worth of documents in a 2022 cyberattack.The threat actors also leaked samples of allegedly stolen files, ...
- Lloyd’s of London reboots after dodgy network activity detected
October 7, 2022
Lloyd’s of London has reset its IT systems and is probing a possible cyberattack against it after detecting worrisome network behavior this week. “Lloyd’s has detected unusual activity on its network and we are investigating the issue,” a spokesperson told The Register on Thursday. “As a precautionary measure, we are resetting the Lloyd’s network and systems. ...
- TOP 10 unattributed APT mysteries
October 7, 2022
Targeted attack attribution is always a tricky thing, and in general, we believe that attribution is best left to law enforcement agencies. The reason is that, while in 90% of cases it is possible to understand a few things about the attackers, such as their native language or even location, the remaining 10% can lead ...
- Initial access broker repurposing techniques in targeted attacks against Ukraine
October 7, 2022
As the war in Ukraine continues, TAG is tracking an increasing number of financially motivated threat actors targeting Ukraine whose activities seem closely aligned with Russian government-backed attackers. This post provides details on five different campaigns conducted from April to August 2022 by a threat actor whose activities overlap with a group CERT-UA tracks as ...
