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:

  • Hunting for Mythic in network traffic

    December 11, 2025

    Threat actors frequently employ post-exploitation frameworks in cyberattacks to maintain control over compromised hosts and move laterally within the organization’s network. While they once favored closed-source frameworks, such as Cobalt Strike and Brute Ratel C4, open-source projects like Mythic, Sliver, and Havoc have surged in popularity in recent years. Malicious actors are also quick to adopt ...

  • 16TB of corporate intelligence data exposed in one of the largest lead-generation dataset leaks

    December 11, 2025

    More than 16 terabytes of professional and corporate intelligence data, including personally identifiable information (PII), was sitting in an unprotected database, available to anyone who knew where to look. This is according to cybersecurity researchers at Cybernews who found the database and described it as “one of the largest lead-generation datasets to have ever leaked.” Despite ...

  • Researcher claims Salt Typhoon spies attended Cisco training scheme

    December 11, 2025

    A security researcher specializing in tracking China threats claims two of Salt Typhoon’s members were former attendees of a training scheme run by Cisco. SentinelLabs’ Dakota Cary linked Yu Yang and Qiu Daibing, two alleged members of the Chinese state hacking group, to participants of the 2012 Cisco Networking Academy Cup. The initiative is still going ...

  • CVE-2025-55182: React2Shell Analysis, Proof-of-Concept Chaos, and In-the-Wild Exploitation

    December 10, 2025

    Trend Micro researchers have previously published a blog on what organizations need to know about the actively exploited CVE-2025-55182, which is a critical (CVSS 10.0) pre-authentication remote code execution vulnerability affecting React Server Components (RSC) used in React.js, Next.js, and related frameworks. RSC is a modern architecture where UI components run on the server instead of ...

  • Patch Tuesday – December 2025

    December 10, 2025

    Microsoft is publishing a relatively light 54 new vulnerabilities this December 2025 Patch Tuesday, which is significantly lower than we have come to expect over the past couple of years. Today’s list includes two publicly disclosed remote code vulnerabilities, and a single exploited-in-the-wild vulnerability. Three critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities are also patched today; Microsoft ...

  • U.S. Justice Department Announces Actions to Combat Two Russian State-Sponsored Cyber Criminal Hacking Groups

    December 9, 2025

    The Justice Department announced two indictments in the Central District of California charging Ukrainian national Victoria Eduardovna Dubranova, 33, also known as Vika, Tory, and SovaSonya, for her role in conducting cyberattacks and computer intrusions against critical infrastructure and other victims around the world, in support of Russia’s geopolitical interests. Dubranova was extradited to the ...