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
Related:
- Targeted Ransomware Attack Hits Taiwanese Organizations
May 6, 2020
A new targeted attack has infected several organizations in Taiwan with a new ransomware family, which we have dubbed ColdLock. This attack is potentially destructive as the ransomware appears to target databases and email servers for encryption. The information we gathered indicates that this attack started hitting organizations in early May. Analysis of the malware points ...
- Coinminer, DDoS Bot Attack Docker Daemon Ports
May 6, 2020
Researchers found an open directory containing malicious files, which was first reported in a series of Twitter posts by MalwareHunterTeam. Analyzing some of the files, we found a malicious cryptocurrency miner and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) bot that targets open Docker daemon ports. The attack starts with the shell script named mxutzh.sh, which scans for open ports (2375, ...
- DDoS attacks in Q1 2020
May 6, 2020
Since the beginning of 2020, due to the COVID-2019 pandemic, life has shifted almost entirely to the Web — people worldwide are now working, studying, shopping, and having fun online like never before. This is reflected in the goals of recent DDoS attacks, with the most targeted resources in Q1 being websites of medical organizations, ...
- Excel Files with Hidden Sheets Target Users in Italy
May 5, 2020
A spam campaign using emails that have Excel file (.xls) attachments (detected by Trend Micro as Trojan.XF.HIDDBOOK.THDBHBO) has been seen circulating and targeting users in Italy and some users in Germany and other countries. The attachment appears blank when opened, but it has a sheet set to “hidden” that attempts to connect to a URL and download a ...
- COVID-19: Cloud Threat Landscape
May 4, 2020
Unit 42 researchers analyzed 1.2 million newly observed hostnames (NOH) containing keywords related to the COVID-19 pandemic from March 9, 2020 to April 26, 2020 (7 weeks). 86,600+ fully qualified domain names are classified as “high-risk” or “malicious” (C2, malware, or phishing), spread across various regions , as shown in Figure 1. The United States ...
- Oracle: Unpatched Versions of WebLogic App Server Under Active Attack
May 4, 2020
Oracle is urging customers to fast-track a patch for a critical flaw in its WebLogic Server under active attack. The company said it has received numerous reports that attackers were targeting the vulnerability patched last month. Oracle WebLogic Server is a popular application server used in building and deploying enterprise Java EE applications. The server has a remote ...

