Our Insights
Providing you the latest industry-specific news and insights.
Conti Ransomware is the New Ryuk?
BACKGROUND Based on analysis of Conti ransomware, which was originally spotted in the wild in February of this year, the Arete Threat Intelligence team believes that this variant is being operated by the same group that conducted Ryuk…
Read moreRemote Working Cyber Risks with Stephen Ramey
In this weeks episode Kevin and Marc interview Arete director of incident response Stephen Ramey about the increase in cyber risk due to remote working, Stephen’s observations from the front lines, and his recommendations for preventing an attack!
Read moreUniversal Encryption
Ransomware variants like Ryuk, WastedLocker, and Dopplepaymer are also file level encryption. These groups will gain access to the network and perform reconnaissance to identify the victim, understand their business, identify critical systems, and…
Read moreSystem Specific Encryption
Ransomware variants like Phobos, Dharma or CryLock are file level encryption. The TA gains access to the system, copies specific encryption executables onto the systems then runs the executables to encrypt the files. The results are files with a new…
Read moreRemote Access and IoT Search Engines
Recently, Arete Incident Response Tiger Teams (“Arete IR”) have responded to an increased volume of ransomware incidents involving the Sodinikibi, Phobos, and Dharma ransomware variants. The threat actors deploying these variants are known to use…
Read moreMonero- Overview & Quick Facts
OVERVIEW Recently, the threat group behind Sodinokibi ransomware publicly announced the switch from Bitcoin to accepting only Monero payments. The switch was motivated largely by the fact that Monero is inherently more difficult for law…
Read moreMaze Ransomware: Is Posting Data Counterproductive?
Ransomware incidents dominated INFOSEC news in 2019. Penetration methods continued to evolve, attacks became more targeted and ransom demands continued to rise. A major shift in attacker tactics happened in early December when the group behind the…
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