Emerging in early 2023, the Howling Scorpius ransomware group is the entity behind the Akira ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS), which has consistently ranked in recent months among the top five most active ransomware groups. Its double extortion strategy significantly amplifies the threat it poses.
Unit 42 researchers have been monitoring the Howling Scorpius ransomware group over the past year. Howling Scorpius targets small to medium-sized businesses in North America, Europe and Australia, across various sectors. Affected industries include education, consulting, government, manufacturing, telecommunications, technology and pharmaceuticals.
Read more…
Source: Palo Alto Unit 42
Related:
- Flax Typhoon using legitimate software to quietly access Taiwanese organizations
August 24, 2023
Microsoft has identified a nation-state activity group tracked as Flax Typhoon, based in China, that is targeting dozens of organizations in Taiwan with the likely intention of performing espionage. Flax Typhoon gains and maintains long-term access to Taiwanese organizations’ networks with minimal use of malware, relying on tools built into the operating system, along with ...
- Lazarus Group’s infrastructure reuse leads to discovery of new malware
August 24, 2023
In the new Lazarus Group campaign we recently disclosed, the North Korean state-sponsored actor continues to use much of the same infrastructure despite those components being well-documented by security researchers over the years. Their continued use of the same tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) — many of which are publicly known — highlights the group’s confidence ...
- Carderbee: APT Group use Legit Software in Supply Chain Attack Targeting Orgs in Hong Kong
August 22, 2023
A previously unknown advanced persistent threat (APT) group used the legitimate Cobra DocGuard software to carry out a supply chain attack with the goal of deploying the Korplug backdoor (aka PlugX) onto victim computers. In the course of this attack, the attackers used malware signed with a legitimate Microsoft certificate. Most of the victims in this ...
- Common TTPs of attacks against industrial organizations
August 10, 2023
In 2022 Kaspersky investigated a series of attacks against industrial organizations in Eastern Europe. In the campaigns, the attackers aimed to establish a permanent channel for data exfiltration, including data stored on air-gapped systems. Based on similarities found between these campaigns and previously researched campaigns (e.g., ExCone, DexCone), including the use of FourteenHi variants, specific TTPs ...
- Scammers from Ukraine trying to trick Russians into committing crimes
August 8, 2023
Scam artists from Ukraine are using a new tactic to drag Russians into subversive activities, the Russian interior ministry said on Tuesday. “Anonymous callers tell people that con-artists are attempting to steal or have already stolen their money but it is possible to get it back. Here, they are given options: take revenge on the swindlers ...
- Suspected Chinese cyber spies target unpatched SonicWall devices
March 9, 2023
Suspected Chinese cyber criminals have zeroed in on unpatched SonicWall gateways and are infecting the devices with credential-stealing malware that persists through firmware upgrades, according to Mandiant. The spyware targets the SonicWall Secure Mobile Access (SMA) 100 Series – a gateway device that provides VPN access to remote users. Read more… Source: The Register