Mark Arena

October 2, 2020

Attacks Aimed at Disrupting the Trickbot Botnet

This post was originally published on this siteOver the past 10 days, someone has been launching a series of coordinated attacks designed to disrupt Trickbot, an enormous collection of more than two million malware-infected Windows PCs that are constantly being harvested for financial data and are often used as the entry point for deploying ransomware within compromised organizations. A text snippet from one of the bogus Trickbot configuration updates. Source: Intel 471 On Sept. 22, someone pushed out a new configuration file to Windows computers currently infected with Trickbot. The crooks running the Trickbot botnet typically use these config files […]
October 8, 2020

Amid an Embarrassment of Riches, Ransom Gangs Increasingly Outsource Their Work

This post was originally published on this siteThere’s an old adage in information security: “Every company gets penetration tested, whether or not they pay someone for the pleasure.” Many organizations that do hire professionals to test their network security posture unfortunately tend to focus on fixing vulnerabilities hackers could use to break in. But judging from the proliferation of help-wanted ads for offensive pentesters in the cybercrime underground, today’s attackers have exactly zero trouble gaining that initial intrusion: The real challenge seems to be hiring enough people to help everyone profit from the access already gained. One of the most […]
October 28, 2020

Security Blueprints of Many Companies Leaked in Hack of Swedish Firm Gunnebo

This post was originally published on this siteIn March 2020, KrebsOnSecurity alerted Swedish security giant Gunnebo Group that hackers had broken into its network and sold the access to a criminal group which specializes in deploying ransomware. In August, Gunnebo said it had successfully thwarted a ransomware attack, but this week it emerged that the intruders stole and published online tens of thousands of sensitive documents — including schematics of client bank vaults and surveillance systems. The Gunnebo Group is a Swedish multinational company that provides physical security to a variety of customers globally, including banks, government agencies, airports, casinos, […]
August 5, 2021

Ransomware Gangs and the Name Game Distraction

This post was originally published on this siteIt’s nice when ransomware gangs have their bitcoin stolen, malware servers shut down, or are otherwise forced to disband. We hang on to these occasional victories because history tells us that most ransomware moneymaking collectives don’t go away so much as reinvent themselves under a new name, with new rules, targets and weaponry. Indeed, some of the most destructive and costly ransomware groups are now in their third incarnation. A rough timeline of major ransomware operations and their reputed links over time. Reinvention is a basic survival skill in the cybercrime business. Among […]