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:

  • Cyber crime threatening mining safety

    May 16, 2024

    A 2022 survey by Ernst & Young found that 71% of respondents in the mining sector had seen an increase in the number of disruptive attacks in the year leading up to the survey. “Leading mining companies in southern Africa are actively implementing digital transformation projects, and the technology used is becoming more complicated. With connected ...

  • SugarGh0st RAT Used to Target American Artificial Intelligence Experts

    May 16, 2024

    Proofpoint recently identified a SugarGh0st RAT campaign targeting organizations in the United States involved in artificial intelligence efforts, including those in academia, private industry, and government service. Proofpoint tracks the cluster responsible for this activity as UNK_SweetSpecter. SugarGh0st RAT is a remote access trojan, and is a customized variant of Gh0stRAT, an older commodity trojan typically ...

  • Another cyber-attack on Australian healthcare company

    May 16, 2024

    here’s been another large-scale ransomware data breach of an Australian company…this time at an e-script provider named Medi-Secure. Medi-Secure is a prescription exchange service, which offers electronic prescribing and dispensing of prescriptions. It’s not yet known how many data records have been accessed, but experts warn that many Australians might not even know their details were ...

  • Notorious data leak site BreachForums seized by law enforcement

    May 15, 2024

    BreachForums—probably the largest dark web marketplace for stolen data to be leaked and sold—has been seized by law enforcement.Now, both the regular and the TOR domain of BreachForums are plastered with a message telling visitors the site is now under control of the FBI. Raidforums ran from early 2015 until February 2022. The first iteration of ...

  • Threat actors misusing Quick Assist in social engineering attacks leading to ransomware

    May 15, 2024

    Since mid-April 2024, Microsoft Threat Intelligence has observed the threat actor Storm-1811 misusing the client management tool Quick Assist to target users in social engineering attacks. Storm-1811 is a financially motivated cybercriminal group known to deploy Black Basta ransomware. The observed activity begins with impersonation through voice phishing (vishing), followed by delivery of malicious tools, including ...

  • Man convicted following complex two year cybercrime investigation by Police Scotland

    May 15, 2024

    A 21-year-old man from West Dunbartonshire has been convicted of creating, selling and supporting an online computer system with the capability of bringing down websites. Detective Chief Inspector Andy Maclean, of Police Scotland’s Cybercrime Investigations Unit, said: “Tagore supplied a tool used by his customers to carry out Distributed Denial of Services (DDOS) attacks. These are ...