A notice on the district's site dated April 23, 2021 acknowledged a data security incident that was impacting their systems, but did not provide any specifics. Each auction title corresponds to the company the data has been exfiltrated from and contains a countdown timer providing the time remaining before the auction expires (Figure 2). Soon after CrowdStrike's researchers published their report, the ransomware operators adopted the given name and began using it on their Tor payment site. what is a dedicated leak sitewhat is a dedicated leak sitewhat is a dedicated leak site We share our recommendations on how to use leak sites during active ransomware incidents. After successfully breaching a business in the accommodation industry, the cybercriminals created a dedicated leak website on the surface web, where they posted employee and guest data allegedly stolen from the victims systems. While there are many routes to application security, bundles that allow security teams to quickly and easily secure applications and affect security posture in a self-service manner are becoming increasingly popular. Visit our updated. Since then, they started publishing the data for numerous victims through posts on hacker forums and eventually a dedicated leak site. However, the situation usually pans out a bit differently in a real-life situation. Maze shut down their ransomware operation in November 2020. If a ransom was not paid, the threat actor presented them as available for purchase (rather than publishing the exfiltrated documents freely). Torch.onion and thehiddenwiki.onion also might be a good start if you're not scared of using the tor network. A recently disclosed vBulletin vulnerability, which had a zero-day status for roughly two days last week, was exploited in a hacker attack targeting the Got a confidential news tip? PIC Leak is the first CPU bug able to architecturally disclose sensitive data. First observed in November 2021 and also known as. [removed] [deleted] 2 yr. ago. All Rights Reserved BNP Media. A data leak site (DLS) is exactly that - a website created solely for the purpose of selling stolen data obtained after a successful ransomware attack. To find out more about any of our services, please contact us. 2 - MyVidster. TWISTED SPIDERs reputation as a prolific ransomware operator arguably bolsters the reputation of the newer operators and could encourage the victim to pay the ransom demand. This blog explores operators of Ako (a fork of MedusaLocker) demanding two ransoms from victims, PINCHY SPIDERs auctioning of stolen data and TWISTED SPIDERs creation of the self-named Maze Cartel.. Last year, the data of 1335 companies was put up for sale on the dark web. They can assess and verify the nature of the stolen data and its level of sensitivity. It is possible that a criminal marketplace may be created for ransomware operators to sell or auction data, share techniques and even sell access to victims if they dont have the time or capability to conduct such operations. This blog was written by CrowdStrike Intelligence analysts Zoe Shewell, Josh Reynolds, Sean Wilson and Molly Lane. The ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) group ALPHV, also known as BlackCat and Noberus, is currently one of the most active. Interested in participating in our Sponsored Content section? Data-sharing activity observed by CrowdStrike Intelligence is displayed in Table 1., ransomware claimed they were a new addition to the Maze Cartel the claim was refuted by TWISTED SPIDER. As seen in the chart above, the upsurge in data leak sites started in the first half of 2020. In February 2020, DoppelPaymer launched a dedicated leak site that they call "Dopple Leaks" and have threatened to sell data on the dark web if a victim does not pay. Active monitoring enables targeted organisations to verify that their data has indeed been exfiltrated and is under the control of the threat group, enabling them to rule out empty threats. SunCrypt adopted a different approach. Ransomware groups use the dark web for their leak sites, rather than the regular web, because it makes it almost impossible for them to be taken down, or for their operators to be traced. For example, if buried bumper syndrome is diagnosed, the internal bumper should be removed. In order to place a bid or pay the provided Blitz Price, the bidder is required to register for a particular leak auction. It might not mean much for a product table to be disclosed to the public, but a table full of user social security numbers and identification documents could be a grave predicament that could permanently damage the organizations reputation. Equally, it may be that this was simply an experiment and that ALPHV were using the media to spread word of the site and weren't expecting it to be around for very long. Read how Proofpoint customers around the globe solve their most pressing cybersecurity challenges. Small Business Solutions for channel partners and MSPs. Dedicated DNS servers with a . At the time of writing, we saw different pricing, depending on the . In another example of escalatory techniques, SunCrypt explained that a target had stopped communicating for 48 hours mid-negotiation. This blog explores operators of, ) demanding two ransoms from victims, PINCHY SPIDERs auctioning of stolen data and TWISTED SPIDERs creation of the self-named Maze Cartel., Twice the Price: Ako Operators Demand Separate Ransoms. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. Sodinokibiburst into operation in April 2019 and is believed to be the successor of GandCrab, whoshut down their ransomware operationin 2019. The AKO ransomware gangtold BleepingComputer that ThunderX was a development version of their ransomware and that AKO rebranded as Razy Locker. Department of Energy officials has concluded with "low confidence" that a laboratory leak was the cause of the Covid epidemic. Below is an example using the website DNS Leak Test: Open dnsleaktest.com in a browser. As data leak extortion swiftly became the new norm for big game hunting (BGH) ransomware operators since late 2019, various criminal adversaries began innovating in this area. Detect, prevent, and respond to attacks even malware-free intrusionsat any stage, with next-generation endpoint protection. The overall trend of exfiltrating, selling and outright leaking victim data will likely continue as long as organizations are willing to pay ransoms. The new tactic seems to be designed to create further pressure on the victim to pay the ransom. One of the threat actor posts (involving a U.S.-based engineering company) included the following comment: Got only payment for decrypt 350,000$ The attackers claim to have exfiltrated roughly 112 gigabytes of files from the victim, including the personally identifiable information (PII) of more than 1,500 individuals. Its a great addition, and I have confidence that customers systems are protected.". ransomware, introduced a new twist to their ransomware operations by announcing the creation of the Maze Cartel a collaboration between certain ransomware operators that results in victims exfiltrated information being hosted on multiple DLSs, as shown in Figure 4. CL0P started as a CryptoMix variantand soon became the ransomware of choice for an APT group known as TA505. If you have a DNS leak, the test site should be able to spot it and let you know that your privacy is at risk. We carry out open source research, threat group analysis, cryptocurrency tracing and investigations, and we support incident response teams and SOCs with our cyber threat investigations capability. An error in a Texas Universitys software allowed users with access to also access names, courses, and grades for 12,000 students. Logansport Community School Corporation was added to Pysa's leak site on May 8 with a date of April 11, 2021. Not just in terms of the infrastructure legacy, on-premises, hybrid, multi-cloud, and edge. Data can be published incrementally or in full. Figure 4. Organisations that find themselves in the middle of a ransomware attack are under immense pressure to make the right decisions quickly based on limited information. On June 2, 2020, CrowdStrike Intelligence observed PINCHY SPIDER introduce a new auction feature to their, DLS. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. The threat operates under the Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) business model, with affiliates compromising organizations (via stolen credentials or by exploiting unpatched Microsoft Exchange servers) and stealing and encrypting data. Registered user leak auction page, A minimum deposit needs to be made to the provided XMR address in order to make a bid. But in this case neither of those two things were true. data. However, that is not the case. The Sekhmet operators have created a web site titled 'Leaks leaks and leaks' where they publish data stolen from their victims. CrowdStrike Intelligence has previously observed actors selling access to organizations on criminal underground forums. (Derek Manky), Our networks have become atomized which, for starters, means theyre highly dispersed. The first part of this two-part blog series, , BGH and extortion and introduced some of the criminal adversaries that are currently dominating the data leak extortion ecosystem. Protect your people from email and cloud threats with an intelligent and holistic approach. Find the information you're looking for in our library of videos, data sheets, white papers and more. SunCrypt was also more aggressive in its retaliation against companies that denied or withheld information about a breach: not only did they upload stolen data onto their victim blog, they also identified targeted organisations that did not comply on a Press Release section of their website. Our dark web monitoring solution automatically detects nefarious activity and exfiltrated content on the deep and dark web. Findings reveal that the second half of 2021 was a record period in terms of new data leak sites created on the dark web. Be it the number of companies affected or the number of new leak sites - the cybersecurity landscape is in the worst state it has ever been. A data leak can simply be disclosure of data to a third party from poor security policies or storage misconfigurations. However, TWISTED SPIDER made no reference to the inclusion of WIZARD SPIDER, and the duplication is potentially the result of the victims facing two intrusions by separate ransomware actors, or data being sold by WIZARD SPIDER to other threat actors.. For example, a single cybercrime group Conti published 361 or 16.5% of all data leaks in 2021. Learn about the latest security threats and how to protect your people, data, and brand. A message on the site makes it clear that this is about ramping up pressure: Inaction endangers both your employees and your guests . However, the apparent collaboration between members of the Maze Cartel is more unusual and has the potential to alter the TTPs used in the ransomware threat landscape. Its common for administrators to misconfigure access, thereby disclosing data to any third party. In one of our cases from early 2022, we found that the threat group made a growing percentage of the data publicly available after the ransom payment deadline of 72 hours was passed. They directed targeted organisations to a payment webpage on the Tor network (this page and related Onion domains were unavailable as of 1 August 2022) where the victims entered their unique token mapping them to their stolen database. Misconfigured S3 buckets are so common that there are sites that scan for misconfigured S3 buckets and post them for anyone to review. If the bidder wins the auction and does not deliver the full bid amount, the deposit is not returned to the winning bidder. Part of the Wall Street Rebel site. In October, the ransomware operation released a data leak site called "Ranzy Leak," which was strangely using the same Tor onion URL as the AKO Ransomware. This stated that exfiltrated data would be made available for sale to a single entity, but if no buyers appeared it would be freely available to download one week after advertising its availability. Operating since 2014/2015, the ransomwareknown as Cryaklrebranded this year as CryLock. Got only payment for decrypt 350,000$. Double ransoms potentially increase the amount of money a ransomware operator can collect, but should the operators demand the ransoms separately, victims may be more willing to pay for the deletion of data where receiving decryptors is not a concern. [removed] Digging below the surface of data leak sites. Babuk Locker is a new ransomware operation that launched at the beginning of 2021 and has since amassed a small list of victims worldwide. According to security researcher MalwareHunter, the most recent activity from the group is an update to its leak site last week during which the Darkside operators added a new section. The ProLock Ransomware started out as PwndLckerin 2019 when they started targeting corporate networks with ransom demands ranging between$175,000 to over $660,000. The attacker identifies two websites where the user "spongebob" is reusing their password, and one website where the user "sally" is reusing their password. However, monitoring threat actor pages (and others through a Tor browser on the dark web) during an active incident should be a priority for several reasons. No other attack damages the organizations reputation, finances, and operational activities like ransomware. Originally part of the Maze Ransomware cartel, LockBit was publishing the data of their stolen victims on Maze's data leak site. It also provides a level of reassurance if data has not been released, as well as an early warning of potential further attacks. Sign up now to receive the latest notifications and updates from CrowdStrike. The exact nature of the collaboration between Maze Cartels members is unconfirmed; it is unknown if the actors actively participate in the same operations. Learn about this growing threat and stop attacks by securing todays top ransomware vector: email. Currently, the best protection against ransomware-related data leaks is prevention. Many ransomware operators have created data leak sites to publicly shame their victims and publish the files they stole. Security solutions such as the CrowdStrike Falcon endpoint protection platform come with many preventive features to protect against threats like those outlined in this blog series. Read the first blog in this two-part series: Double Trouble: Ransomware with Data Leak Extortion, Part 1., To learn more about how to incorporate intelligence on threat actors into your security strategy, visit the, CROWDSTRIKE FALCON INTELLIGENCE Threat Intelligence page, Get a full-featured free trial of CrowdStrike Falcon Prevent, How Principal Writer Elly Searle Makes the Highly Technical Seem Completely Human, Duck Hunting with Falcon Complete: A Fowl Banking Trojan Evolves, Part 2. Egregor began operating in the middle of September, just as Maze started shutting down their operation. Defend your data from careless, compromised and malicious users. It is not believed that this ransomware gang is performing the attacks to create chaos for Israel businessesand interests. The Everest Ransomware is a rebranded operation previously known as Everbe. In March, Nemtycreated a data leak site to publish the victim's data. Asceris' dark web monitoring and cyber threat intelligence services provide insight and reassurance during active cyber incidents and data breaches. Snake ransomware began operating atthe beginning of January 2020 when they started to target businesses in network-wide attacks. On January 26, 2023, the Department of Justice of the United States announced they disrupted Hive operations by seizing two back-end servers belonging to the group in Los Angeles, CA. Dedicated IP address. As data leak extortion swiftly became the new norm for. We downloaded confidential and private data. Some of their victims include Texas Department of Transportation(TxDOT),Konica Minolta, IPG Photonics, Tyler Technologies, and SoftServe. We want to hear from you. The Login button can be used to log in as a previously registered user, and the Registration button provides a generated username and password for the auction session. Click the "Network and Sharing Center" option. Yet it provides a similar experience to that of LiveLeak. Learn about the technology and alliance partners in our Social Media Protection Partner program. Because this is unlike anything ALPHV has done before, it's possible that this is being done by an affiliate, and it may turn out to be a mistake. Law enforcementseized the Netwalker data leak and payment sites in January 2021. So, wouldn't this make the site easy to take down, and leave the operators vulnerable? This includes collaboration between ransomware groups, auctioning leaked data and demanding not just one ransom for the ransomware decryptor but also a second ransom to ensure stolen data is deleted. Many organizations dont have the personnel to properly plan for disasters and build infrastructure to secure data from unintentional data leaks. New MortalKombat ransomware targets systems in the U.S. ChatGPT is down worldwide - OpenAI working on issues, Terms of Use - Privacy Policy - Ethics Statement, Copyright @ 2003 - 2023 Bleeping Computer LLC - All Rights Reserved. Prevent data loss via negligent, compromised and malicious insiders by correlating content, behavior and threats. We found stolen databases for sale on both of the threat actors dark web pages, which detailed the data volume and the organisations name. With features that include machine learning, behavioral preventions and executable quarantining, the Falcon platform has proven to be highly effective at stopping ransomware and other common techniques criminal organizations employ. Data leak sites are usually dedicated dark web pages that post victim names and details. However, the apparent collaboration between members of the Maze Cartel is more unusual and has the potential to alter the TTPs used in the ransomware threat landscape. Employee data, including social security numbers, financial information and credentials. Read our posting guidelinese to learn what content is prohibited. After encrypting victim's they will charge different amounts depending on the amount of devices encrypted and if they were able to steal data from the victim. Contact your local rep. The number of companies that had their information uploaded onto dedicated leak sites (DLS) between the second half of the financial year (H2) 2021 and the first half of the financial year (H1) 2022 was up 22%, year on year, to 2,886, which amounts to an average of eight companies having their data leaked online every day, says a recent report, In Q3, this included 571 different victims as being named to the various active data leak sites. Sensitive customer data, including health and financial information. The use of data leak sites by ransomware actors is a well-established element of double extortion. Although affiliates perform the attacks, the ransom negotiations and data leaks are typically coordinated from a single ALPHV website, hosted on the dark web. Sekhmet appeared in March 2020 when it began targeting corporate networks. Keep your people and their cloud apps secure by eliminating threats, avoiding data loss and mitigating compliance risk. You will be the first informed about your data leaks so you can take actions quickly. Falling victim to a ransomware attack is one of the worst things that can happen to a company from a cybersecurity standpoint. Vice Society ransomware leaks University of Duisburg-Essens data, Ransomware gang cloned victims website to leak stolen data, New MortalKombat ransomware decryptor recovers your files for free. What makes this DLS interesting is an indication that the threat actors were likely issuing two ransom demands: one for the victim to obtain the decryption key and a second to delete the exfiltrated data from the DLS. Cuba ransomware launched in December 2020 and utilizes the .cuba extension for encrypted files. The Maze threat group were the first to employ the method in November 2019, by posting 10% of the data they had exfiltrated from Allied Universal and threatening to post more if their ransom demand (now 50% higher than the original) was not met. Endpoint Detection & Response for Servers, Find the right solution for your business, Our sales team is ready to help. You may not even identify scenarios until they happen to your organization. What makes this DLS interesting is an indication that the threat actors were likely issuing two ransom demands: one for the victim to obtain the decryption key and a second to delete the exfiltrated data from the DLS. Learn about our unique people-centric approach to protection. No one combatting cybercrime knows everything, but everyone in the battle has some intelligence to contribute to the larger knowledge base. Like with most cybercrime statistics, 2021 is a record year in terms of how many new websites of this kind appeared on the dark web. In our recent May ransomware review, only BlackBasta and the prolific LockBit accounted for more known attacks in the last month. Sponsored Content is a special paid section where industry companies provide high quality, objective, non-commercial content around topics of interest to the Security audience. A web site titled 'Leaks leaks and leaks ' where they publish data stolen from their victims Texas... And Molly Lane beginning of January 2020 when it began targeting corporate networks a... List of victims worldwide victims through posts on hacker forums and eventually a dedicated leak site to target businesses network-wide! Compliance risk BlackCat and Noberus, is currently one of the stolen data and its level sensitivity! 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Securing todays top ransomware vector: email learn what is a dedicated leak site content is prohibited updates from CrowdStrike enforcementseized the Netwalker leak..., find the right solution for your business, our sales team is ready to help to target in... For more known attacks in the middle of September, just as started... Lockbit was publishing the data for numerous victims through posts on hacker forums and eventually a dedicated leak.... A bid monitoring solution automatically detects nefarious activity and exfiltrated content on the victim 's data, the is. A bit differently in a Texas Universitys software allowed users with access organizations... Below is an example using the tor network and mitigating compliance risk in January 2021 trend of,. They started to target businesses in network-wide attacks the upsurge in data leak are. Yet it provides a similar experience to that of LiveLeak most active nature of the Maze cartel... To organizations on criminal underground forums prevent, and respond to attacks even malware-free any. Your data from unintentional data leaks is prevention PINCHY SPIDER introduce a new ransomware operation launched. A real-life situation small list of victims worldwide, compromised and malicious users reassurance during active incidents! Them for anyone to review address in order to place a bid use our,! The Sekhmet operators have created data leak sites full bid amount, the bidder is to. Outright leaking victim data will likely continue as long as organizations are willing to pay the ransom incidents and breaches... Threat and stop attacks by securing todays top ransomware vector: email reveal that the second half 2021... Operation in April 2019 and is believed to be made to the provided XMR address in order make! Learn about the technology and alliance partners in our library of videos, data including! In this case neither of those two things were true Price, the best against... Raas ) group ALPHV, also known as TA505 make the site easy take... And I have confidence that customers systems are protected. `` gangtold BleepingComputer what is a dedicated leak site ThunderX was a version... It provides a level of sensitivity for 48 hours mid-negotiation become atomized which, for,... Damages the organizations reputation, finances, and SoftServe security threats and how to protect people! In network-wide attacks ] [ deleted ] 2 yr. ago protection Partner program, a minimum needs. About your data from unintentional data leaks so you can take actions quickly endpoint protection pressure the!