Our Insights
Providing you the latest industry-specific news and insights.
Avaddon Ransomware Hits AXA
BY ARETE CYBER THREAT INTELLIGENCE TEAM EXECUTIVE SUMMARY From September 2020 to May 2021, the Arete Incident Response (IR) practice responded to nine Avaddon ransomware engagements across varying industry sectors, including the professional…
Read moreColonial Pipeline Breached by Darkside Ransomware Group
On Saturday May 8, US Colonial Pipeline announced that they were victim of a ransomware attack that affected their network on Friday May 7. US Colonial Pipeline is said to be the largest fuel pipeline in the United States and the main source of…
Read moreCodecov Bash Uploader Supply Chain Attack
By Arete Cyber Threat Intelligence Team EXECUTIVE SUMMARY On April 15, Codecov announced a compromise to its Bash Uploader (a software application used in some of its products), whereby a threat actor was able to send sensitive information from…
Read moreBlack Kingdom Returns to Exploit Zero-Day Vulnerabilities in Unpatched Microsoft Exchange Servers
By Steve Ramey You know what’s fun about zero-day exploits? Nothing, especially when ransomware is involved. Earlier this month, Microsoft released a statement notifying the public of a zero-day exploit that affected its on-premises Exchange…
Read moreMicrosoft Exchange Server Zero-Day Hack Insight
On March 2, 2021, Microsoft disclosed and provided security updates for four [4] critical vulnerabilities — CVE-2021-26855, CVE-2021-26857, CVE-2021-26858, and CVE-2021-27065 — impacting on-premises Microsoft Exchange Servers. While Internet-facing…
Read moreDon’t Drink from That! Gootloader Watering Hole Leads to REvil Attack
By Arete Forensics Team REvil, more commonly referred to as Sodinokibi, is one of the most prolific ransomware threat groups currently active in the cyber extortion space. In the past year alone, Arete has responded to countless incidents where…
Read moreDarkside Ransomware: Caviar Taste on Your Big-Game Budget
By Arete Cyber Threat Intelligence Team EXECUTIVE SUMMARY By all appearances, the proprietors of Darkside ransomware mean business. Big business. With their sights set on organizations with US$4M+ in revenue, they’re all about high-value,…
Read moreGood Europol Hunting: How Do You Like Them Apples, Emotet?
On January 27, 2021, Europol announced that it had led a coordinated takedown of the Emotet infrastructure in collaboration with law enforcement authorities in the Netherlands, Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Lithuania,…
Read moreEgregor: The Ghost of Soviet Bears Past Haunts On
By Adam Brown and Harold Rodriguez, Arete Cyber Threat Intelligence Team Ransomware variants come. Ransomware variants go. And while Egregor may have only recently surfaced, it is by no means a fly-by-night operation. In fact, one could argue that…
Read moreWastedLocker Ransomware Insights
BACKGROUND On the December 5th, 2019 the U.S. Department of Justice announced indictments against 17 individuals including 2 Russian nationals Maksim Yakubets and Igor Turashev that were the primary ring-leaders of the Russian hacking group known as…
Read moreSodinokibi Labels Keys with “Black Lives Matter”
OVERVIEW Since January 2020, the Arete IR practice has responded to forty-one (41) Sodinokibi engagements. The industry has seen two big changes with Sodinokibi/REvil from their shift to exfiltrating data as of January 2020, and more, recently with…
Read moreAKO Ransomware – Analysis
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Since January 2020, Arete’s incident response (IR) team has responded to various AKO ransomware engagements. Recently, we have encountered these specific attacks against the Finance, Healthcare, and Manufacturing sectors. This…
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