The sale and purchase of unauthorized access to compromised enterprise networks has become a linchpin for cybercriminal operations, particularly in facilitating ransomware attacks.
Underground forums are sharing guidelines on breaching networks and selling the access they obtain, leaving the exploitation to other malicious actors. On underground criminal forums, these transactions allow actors with complementary skills to collaborate, amplifying the impact and reach of cyberattacks. The market for such access has grown notably, especially as ransomware operators increasingly employ double-extortion tactics.
Read more…
Source: Rapid7
Related:
- FBI arrests second Apophis Squad hacker in the US
February 13, 2019
The FBI arrested yesterday a hacker part of a hacking team known as Apophis Squad. This is the second arrest of an Apophis Squad member after UK cops arrested a teenager in August 2018. The two, US and UK citizens, respectively, have been charged in an indictment unsealed by the US Department of Justice yesterday. They stand ...
- Attackers Completely Destroy VFEmail’s Secure Mail Infrastructure
February 12, 2019
A catastrophic, smash-and-destroy cyberattack has eliminated the U.S. infrastructure for secure email service VFEmail. It’s a rare example of a purely destructive offensive, apparently unmotivated by financial gain or espionage goals. An attacker wiped out the company’s U.S. servers on Monday evening, including backups, destroying almost two decades worth of user data in just a few ...
- Trickbot Adds Remote Application Credential-Grabbing Capabilities to Its Repertoire
February 12, 2019
In November 2018, we covered a Trickbot variant that came with a password-grabbing module, which allowed it to steal credentials from numerous applications. In January 2019, we saw Trickbot (detected as TrojanSpy.Win32.TRICKBOT.AZ and Trojan.Win32.MERETAM.AD) with new capabilities added to its already extensive bag of tricks. Its authors clearly aren’t done updating Trickbot — we recently found a ...
- How your stolen personal data is sent to the dark web, and what hackers can do with it
February 10, 2019
“It’s 6.5 billion now,” the cybersecurity specialist says, standing in his office in Kowloon, Hong Kong, overlooking a control room where glowing computer screens display the pulse being taken of nefarious web activity. One dial acts as an algorithm-generated odometer for internet threat levels, while a pulsing world map shows regions from which cyberattacks and ...
- Banks Under Attack: Tactics and Techniques Used to Target Financial Organizations
February 8, 2019
US$100 – 300 billion: That’s the estimated losses that financial institutions can potentially incur annually from cyberattacks. Despite the staggering amount, it’s unsurprising — over the past three years, several banks suffered $87 million in combined losses from attacks that compromised their SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication)infrastructures. That’s just the tip of the iceberg: A ...
- Android Phones Can Get Hacked Just by Looking at a PNG Image
February 6, 2019
Using an Android device? Beware! You have to remain more caution while opening an image file on your smartphone—downloaded anywhere from the Internet or received through messaging or email apps. Yes, just viewing an innocuous-looking image could hack your Android smartphone—thanks to three newly-discovered critical vulnerabilities that affect millions of devices running recent versions of Google’s mobile ...

