Since March 2023, Akira ransomware has impacted a wide range of businesses and critical infrastructure entities in North America, Europe, and Australia. In April 2023, following an initial focus on Windows systems, Akira threat actors deployed a Linux variant targeting VMware ESXi virtual machines.
As of January 1, 2024, the ransomware group has impacted over 250 organizations and claimed approximately $42 million USD in ransomware proceeds. Early versions of the Akira ransomware variant were written in C++ and encrypted files with a .akira extension; however, beginning in August 2023, some Akira attacks began deploying Megazord, using Rust-based code which encrypts files with a .powerranges extension.
Read more…
Source: U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation Cyber Division
Related:
- Ragnar Locker Gang Warns Victims Not to Call the FBI
September 7, 2021
All that the FBI/ransomware negotiators/investigators do is muck things up, so we’re going to publish your stuff if you call for help, the Ragnar Locker ransomware gang announced on its darknet data-leak site. In an announcement posted this week and seen by Bleeping Computer, the ransomware operators threatened to publish all the data of victimized organizations ...
- UK VoIP telco receives ‘colossal ransom demand’
September 2, 2021
Two UK VoIP operators have had their services disrupted over the last couple of days by ongoing, aggressive DDoS attacks. South Coast-based Voip Unlimited has confirmed it has been slapped with a “colossal ransom demand” after being hit by a sustained and large-scale DDoS attack it believes originated from the Russian cybercriminal gang REvil. This morning, it ...
- LockFile Ransomware Uses Never-Before Seen Encryption to Avoid Detection
August 31, 2021
Researchers discovered a novel ransomware emerging on the heels of the ProxyShell vulnerabilities discovery in Microsoft Exchange servers. The threat, dubbed LockFile, uses a unique “intermittent encryption” method as a way to evade detection as well as adopting tactics from previous ransomware gangs. Discovered by researchers at Sophos, LockFile ransomware encrypts every 16 bytes of a ...
- Cybercriminal sells tool to hide malware in AMD, NVIDIA GPUs
August 31, 2021
Cybercriminals are making strides towards attacks with malware that can execute code from the graphics processing unit (GPU) of a compromised system. While the method is not new and demo code has been published before, projects so far came from the academic world or were incomplete and unrefined. Earlier this month, the proof-of-concept (PoC) was sold on ...
- Ransomware: It’s only a matter of time before a smart city falls victim, and we need to take action now
August 27, 2021
Ransomware attacks are going to get worse – and one could eventually take out the infrastructure of an entire 5G-enabled smart city, a cybersecurity expert has warned. Cyber criminals deploying ransomware regularly target government services. Not only do public sector IT budgets mean networks are less secure against attacks, but said networks are also used to ...
- Ragnarok ransomware releases master decryptor after shutdown
August 26, 2021
Ragnarok ransomware gang appears to have called it quits and released the master key that can decrypt files locked with their malware. The threat actor did not leave a note explaining the move; all of a sudden, they replaced all the victims on their leak site with a short instruction on how to decrypt files The leak ...