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Showing posts with the label malware

UK Cybercrime Journal: Inside the Cl0p attack on South Staffs Water

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  What Happened: On 11 May 2026, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) fined South Staffordshire Water £963,900 after the Cl0p ransomware group lurked completely undetected in its network for nearly two years. Initial access reportedly occurred via a malicious phishing email in September 2020, which downloaded Cl0p’s Get2Loader malware and their SDBBOT backdoor to establish persistence. The breach itself, however, was only discovered two years later in July 2022 when staff began investigating IT performance slowdowns and  ultimately found out that 4.1 terabytes of data was exfiltrated and the personal data of 633,887 customers and employees being published in August 2022 on Cl0p’s Tor data leak site. The ICO’s investigation also revealed a staggering list of systemic failures, such as  South Staff’s outsourced Security Operations Center (SOC) was blind to 95% of the network and that they conducted zero internal or external vulnerability scans over an 18-month win...

Tracking Adversaries: EvilCorp, the RansomHub affiliate

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  Introduction This blog is part of a cyber threat intelligence (CTI) blog series called Tracking Adversaries that investigates prominent or new threat groups. The focus of this blog is EvilCorp, a sanctioned Russia-based cybercriminal enterprise known for launching ransomware attacks, and RansomHub, a prominent ransomware as a service (RaaS) operation run by Russian-speaking cybercriminals. These two threat groups have been linked together through cooperation on intrusions and IOCs and TTPs shared by multiple CTI sources. The implication of this link is critical due to RansomHub being the most active ransomware gang and is working with a well-known sanctioned affiliate. Who is RansomHub? Active since February 2024, RansomHub is a RaaS operation formerly known as Cyclops and Knight and is run by Russian-speaking adversaries. It  is currently used by more and more cybercriminals that are ex-affiliates of other RaaS operations. This includes the ALPHV/BlackCat RaaS an...

Cyber Threat Intelligence for Autodidacts

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Introduction Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) analysts come from diverse backgrounds, and their roles can vary a lot depending on the type of organisation they work for. The path to becoming a CTI analyst can follow one of several routes, such as moving from Security Operations Center (SOC) and other information security roles, joining from university, or from law enforcement or military backgrounds. I’ve also met many who have radically changed trades and reskilled from jobs such as secondary school teachers to bar and hotel staff with great success. CTI teams can also vary significantly in their structure and focus. Some analysts work for vendors, providing intelligence to multiple clients across industries like, for example, Recorded Future’s Insikt Group. Others serve as defenders within a single company, working to protect that organization’s assets like, for example Equinix’s ETAC team. There are analysts who operate within government agencies as well, such as intelligence, se...