Threat Assessment: Ignoble Scorpius, Distributors of BlackSuit Ransomware


Unit 42 researchers have observed an increase in BlackSuit ransomware activity beginning in March 2024 that suggests a ramp up of operations. This threat emerged as a rebrand of Royal ransomware, which occurred in May 2023. Unit 42 tracks the group behind this threat as Ignoble Scorpius.

Since the rebrand, Unit 42 has observed at least 93 victims globally, a quarter of which were in the construction and manufacturing industries. The group describes themselves as an “extortioner named BlackSuit” and claims to reverse file encryption for “quite a small compensation essentially.” Although the group states the compensation is small, Unit 42 has observed that, on average, the initial ransom demand is about equal to 1.6% of the victim organization’s annual revenue.

Read more…
Source: Trend Micro


Sign up for our Newsletter


Related:

  • How to tell if your online accounts have been hacked

    March 25, 2025

    More and more hackers are targeting regular people with the goal of breaking into their bank accounts, stealing their crypto, or simply stalking them. These types of attacks are still relatively rare, so there’s no need for alarm. But it’s important to know what you can do to protect yourself if you suspect someone accessed your ...

  • Notable vulnerabilities in Next.js (CVE-2025-29927) and CrushFTP

    March 25, 2025

    Rapid7 is warning customers of notable vulnerabilities in Next.js, a React framework for building web applications, and CrushFTP, a file transfer technology that has previously been targeted by adversaries. CVE-2025-29927 is a critical improper authorization vulnerability in Next.js middleware that could (theoretically) allow an attacker to bypass authorization checks in a Next.js application, if the authorization ...

  • Financial cyberthreats in 2024

    March 25, 2025

    As more and more financial transactions are conducted in digital form each year, financial threats comprise a large piece of the global cyberthreat landscape. That’s why Kaspersky researchers analyze the trends related to these threats and share an annual report highlighting the main dangers to corporate and consumer finances. This report contains key trends and statistics ...

  • The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans

    March 24, 2025

    The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen. I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the ...

  • Oracle Cloud says it’s not true someone broke into its login servers and stole data

    March 23, 2025

    Oracle has straight up denied claims by a miscreant that its public cloud offering has been compromised and information stolen. A crook late last week advertised on an online cyber-crime forum what was alleged to be Oracle Cloud customer security keys and other sensitive data swiped from the IT giant. This material was said to have ...

  • Russian zero-day seller is offering up to $4 million for Telegram exploits

    March 21, 2025

    Operation Zero, a company that acquires and sells zero-days exclusively to the Russian government and local Russian companies, announced on Thursday that it’s looking for exploits for the popular messaging app Telegram, and is willing to offer up to $4 million for them. The exploit broker is offering up to $500,000 for a “one-click” remote code ...