All news with #ransomware tag

DroidLock Android Malware Locks Devices, Demands Ransom

🔒 Zimperium researchers uncovered a new Android malware family called DroidLock that locks victims’ screens, steals messages and call data, and can remotely control devices via VNC. The threat targets Spanish-speaking users and is distributed through malicious websites that impersonate legitimate apps and deliver a dropper which installs a secondary payload. The payload requests Device Admin and Accessibility privileges to perform actions such as wiping devices, changing lock credentials, recording audio, starting the camera, and placing overlays that capture lock patterns. Operators serve a ransom WebView directing victims to contact a Proton email and threaten permanent file destruction within 24 hours if unpaid.

Behind the Breaches: Case Studies of Modern Threat Actors

🔍 This analysis examines leaked communications and recent incidents to reveal how modern threat actors organize, adapt and blur the lines between criminal, contractor and researcher roles. Leaked BlackBasta chats show internal discord, leadership opacity, technical debt and disputes over revenue and workload. The EncryptHub case highlights a solo operator who both conducted malware and credited vulnerability disclosures to Microsoft, illustrating the growing hybridization of actor identities. Finally, BlackLock’s open recruitment for "traffers" demonstrates how the ransomware supply chain is becoming commoditized and industrialized.

HSE Offers €750 to Victims of 2021 Ransomware Attack

🔒 The Health Service Executive (HSE) has offered €750 to individuals whose personal data was exposed in the May 2021 Conti ransomware attack, plus an additional €650 toward legal costs. The intrusion began with a malicious Microsoft Excel file that bypassed outdated anti‑malware defenses, forcing a full IT shutdown and widespread disruption to hospital services. A later PwC review criticised the HSE's unpatched systems and frail infrastructure, while the organisation says it has found no evidence of fraud stemming from the breach after more than four years.

November 2025: Ransomware and GenAI Drive Cyber Attacks

🛡️ In November 2025, organizations faced an average of 2,003 cyber-attacks per week, a 3% rise from October and 4% above November 2024. Check Point Research attributes the increase to a surge in ransomware, broader attack surfaces and growing exposure from internal use of generative AI tools. The education sector was hit hardest, averaging 4,656 attacks per organization per week. These trends elevate operational, data and recovery risks across industries.

01flip: Rust-Based Multi-Platform Ransomware Targeting APAC

🔐 Unit 42 identified 01flip, a new Rust‑based ransomware family observed in June 2025 that targets both Windows and Linux via Rust cross‑compilation. The malware enumerates writable directories, drops RECOVER-YOUR-FILE.TXT ransom notes, renames files with a .01flip extension, and encrypts victims with AES‑128‑CBC while protecting session keys with an embedded RSA‑2048 public key. Observed victims are a limited set in the Asia‑Pacific region, and an alleged data dump appeared on a dark‑web forum after at least one infection.

Polymorphic AI Malware: Hype vs. Practical Reality Today

🧠 Polymorphic AI malware is more hype than breakthrough: attackers are experimenting with LLMs, but practical advantages over traditional polymorphic techniques remain limited. AI mainly accelerates tasks—debugging, translating samples, generating boilerplate, and crafting convincing phishing lures—reducing the skill barrier and increasing campaign tempo. Many AI-assisted variants are unstable or detectable in practice; defenders should focus on behavioral detection, identity protections, and response automation rather than fearing instant, reliable self‑rewriting malware.

DeadLock Ransomware Uses BYOVD to Disable Endpoint Defenses

🔒 Cisco Talos detailed a campaign where a financially motivated actor deployed DeadLock ransomware using a Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver (BYOVD) technique to disable endpoint protections by exploiting a Baidu driver flaw (CVE-2024-51324). A custom loader invoked the vulnerable driver to issue kernel-level commands that killed security processes; PowerShell scripts then escalated privileges, stopped backup and security services, and erased shadow copies. The C++ payload (compiled July 2025) injects into rundll32.exe, uses a custom stream cipher with time-based keys to append ".dlock" and waits roughly 50 seconds to evade sandboxes; communications and ransom negotiations occurred via Session. Organizations should enforce MFA, maintain strong endpoint controls and keep regular offline backups.

IAB Abuses EDR and Windows Utilities for Stealthy Malware

🔐Storm-0249, an initial access broker, is abusing endpoint detection and response (EDR) components and trusted Windows utilities to execute malware stealthily. In one analyzed incident the actor used social engineering to run curl commands that installed a malicious MSI which drops a DLL placed beside the legitimate SentinelAgentWorker.exe, then performs DLL sideloading to run attacker code inside the signed EDR process. Additional payloads are piped into memory via PowerShell from a spoofed domain, avoiding disk-based detection. Researchers recommend behavior-based detection for trusted processes loading unsigned DLLs and stricter controls on curl, PowerShell, and living-off-the-land binaries.

Hidden Forensic Evidence in Windows ETL: Diagtrack File

🔍 FortiGuard IR analysts discovered that an obscure ETL file, AutoLogger-Diagtrack-Listener.etl, can retain historical process execution data useful for post-incident forensics. Parsing ETW payloads exposed ProcessStarted events including ImageName, ProcessID, ParentProcessID and sometimes CommandLine entries that revealed deleted tools. Controlled testing showed creating the autologger and setting AllowTelemetry=3 often produced an empty file, indicating the DiagTrack service may populate the file only under undocumented conditions. Further research is needed to understand when and how this telemetry is written.

Storm-0249 Shifts to Fileless Execution and DLL Sideloader

🚨 ReliaQuest warns that Storm-0249 appears to be evolving from an initial access broker into an active operator, adopting domain spoofing, DLL side-loading and fileless PowerShell execution to facilitate ransomware intrusions. The actor used a Microsoft-mimicking URL and the Windows Run dialog to fetch and execute a PowerShell script that installed a trojanized SentinelOne DLL via a malicious MSI. This technique leverages living-off-the-land utilities and signed processes to maintain persistence and evade detection.

BYOVD Loader Used to Disable EDR in DeadLock Ransomware

🔐 Cisco Talos reported a novel Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver (BYOVD) loader used to disable endpoint security and deliver DeadLock ransomware. The attacker exploited a Baidu Antivirus driver vulnerability (CVE-2024-51324) via a loader named EDRGay.exe and driver DriverGay.sys to terminate EDR processes at kernel level. A PowerShell payload bypassed UAC, disabled Windows Defender, stopped backup and database services, and removed all volume shadow copies. DeadLock uses a custom timing-based stream cipher and extensive kill and exclusion lists to encrypt files while avoiding system corruption.

STAC6565 Targets Canada; Gold Blade Deploys QWCrypt

🛡️ Sophos links nearly 40 intrusions from Feb 2024 to Aug 2025 to STAC6565, a cluster assessed to overlap the criminal group Gold Blade (aka RedCurl/Red Wolf). The campaign shows an unusually narrow geographic focus — almost 80% of attacks targeted Canadian organizations — and combines targeted data theft with selective ransomware deployment using QWCrypt. Attack chains abuse recruitment platforms to deliver multi‑stage loaders such as RedLoader and tools designed to evade AV and disable recovery, often leveraging WebDAV, Cloudflare Workers and program‑compatibility execution paths.

Experts Warn AI Is Becoming Integrated in Cyberattacks

🔍 Industry debate is heating up over AI’s role in the cyber threat chain, with some experts calling warnings exaggerated while many frontline practitioners report concrete AI-assisted attacks. Recent reports from Google and Anthropic document malware and espionage leveraging LLMs and agentic tools. CISOs are urged to balance fundamentals with rapid defenses and prepare boards for trade-offs.

Manufacturing Sees Fewer Encryptions but Ransom Risks

🔒 A recent Sophos study finds the manufacturing sector is blocking more ransomware before encryption, with only 40% of attacks resulting in data encryption this year versus 74% in 2024. Despite improved containment, data theft remains high (39% of encrypted cases) and more than half of affected firms paid ransoms; the median payment was about €861,000. Shortages of skilled staff, unknown vulnerabilities and inadequate protections are cited as root causes, and attacks are increasing stress and leadership pressures within IT teams.

Ransomware Gangs Use Shanya Packer to Evade EDR Protections

🛡️ Shanya is a packer-as-a-service used by multiple ransomware gangs to conceal payloads that disable endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools. The service returns a custom, encrypted wrapper that decrypts and decompresses the payload entirely in memory and inserts it into a memory-mapped copy of shell32.dll, avoiding disk artifacts. Sophos telemetry links Shanya-packed samples to Medusa, Qilin, Crytox and Akira, and notes techniques that crash user-mode debuggers and facilitate DLL side-loading to deploy EDR killers.

FinCEN: Ransomware Gangs Extorted $2.1B (2022–2024)

📊 A FinCEN analysis of 4,194 Bank Secrecy Act filings found organizations paid more than $2.1 billion in ransom between January 2022 and December 2024. Ransomware incidents peaked in 2023 before falling in 2024 after law enforcement actions disrupted ALPHV/BlackCat and LockBit. Most ransom payments were under $250,000 and roughly 97% were made in Bitcoin. Manufacturing, financial services, and healthcare were the most targeted industries.

Marquis Software Breach Impacts Over 780,000 Nationwide

🔒 Marquis Software Solutions confirmed a breach affecting more than 780,000 individuals after attackers exploited a SonicWall firewall vulnerability on 14 August. The company shut down affected systems and engaged external cybersecurity specialists; a late-October review found unauthorized actors copied files containing personal and financial data from certain business customers. Marquis is offering free credit monitoring and has implemented multiple security controls while its investigation continues, and it reports no evidence so far that the stolen data has been posted online.

Weekly Cyber Recap: React2Shell, AI IDE Flaws, DDoS

🛡️ This week's bulletin spotlights a critical React Server Components flaw, CVE-2025-55182 (React2Shell), that was widely exploited within hours of disclosure, triggering emergency mitigations. Researchers also disclosed 30+ vulnerabilities in AI-integrated IDEs (IDEsaster), while Cloudflare mitigated a record 29.7 Tbps DDoS attributed to the AISURU botnet. Additional activity includes espionage backdoors (BRICKSTORM), fake banking apps distributing Android RATs in Southeast Asia, USB-based miner campaigns, and new stealers and packer services. Defenders are urged to prioritize patching, monitor telemetry, and accelerate threat intelligence sharing.

Barts Health NHS Reports Data Theft via Oracle Zero-Day

🔒 Barts Health NHS Trust disclosed that the Cl0p ransomware group stole invoice data from an Oracle E-Business Suite database after exploiting a zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2025-61882). Stolen files include full names and addresses of payers, records of former employees with debts, supplier details, and accounting files relating to Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals. The trust says its electronic patient record and clinical systems were not affected, has notified the NCSC, Metropolitan Police and the ICO, and is seeking a High Court order while advising patients to check invoices and remain vigilant for suspicious communications.

Ransomware in Manufacturing: Lower Encryption, High Payouts

🔒 A Sophos study finds manufacturing firms are increasingly able to stop ransomware before encryption occurs, with only 40% of attacks leading to data encryption — the lowest rate in five years and down from 74% the prior year. Despite improved defenses, data theft remains a major concern: 39% of encrypted incidents resulted in data loss. More than half of affected companies still paid ransoms, with a median payment of about €861,000 versus median demands near €1 million. Respondents cited skills shortages, unknown vulnerabilities and missing protections as key contributors, and attacks continue to strain IT and leadership teams.