Lance James – Network Securitas

May 17, 2021

Try This One Weird Trick Russian Hackers Hate

This post was originally published on this siteIn a Twitter discussion last week on ransomware attacks, KrebsOnSecurity noted that virtually all ransomware strains have a built-in failsafe designed to cover the backsides of the malware purveyors: They simply will not install on a Microsoft Windows computer that already has one of many types of virtual keyboards installed — such as Russian or Ukrainian. So many readers had questions in response to the tweet that I thought it was worth a blog post exploring this one weird cyber defense trick. The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) more or less matches the […]

June 7, 2021

Adventures in Contacting the Russian FSB

This post was originally published on this siteKrebsOnSecurity recently had occasion to contact the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), the Russian equivalent of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In the process of doing so, I encountered a small snag: The FSB’s website said in order to communicate with them securely, I needed to download and install an encryption and virtual private networking (VPN) appliance that is flagged by at least 20 antivirus products as malware. The FSB headquarters at Lubyanka Square, Moscow. Image: Wikipedia. The reason I contacted the FSB — one of the successor agencies to the […]

November 17, 2022

Researchers Quietly Cracked Zeppelin Ransomware Keys

This post was originally published on this site Peter is an IT manager for a technology manufacturer that got hit with a Russian ransomware strain called “Zeppelin” in May 2020. He’d been on the job less than six months, and because of the way his predecessor architected things, the company’s data backups also were encrypted by Zeppelin. After two weeks of stalling their extortionists, Peter’s bosses were ready to capitulate and pay the ransom demand. Then came the unlikely call from an FBI agent. “Don’t pay,” the agent said. “We’ve found someone who can crack the encryption.” Peter, who spoke […]