AUSTIN, Texas – Ukrainian national Mark Sokolovsky was sentenced today to 60 months in federal prison for one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. According to court documents, Sokolovsky, 28, conspired to operate the Raccoon Infostealer as a malware-as-a-service or “MaaS.” Individuals who deployed Raccoon Infostealer to steal data from victims leased access to…
Category: Malware
Dragos Industrial Ransomware Analysis: Q3 2024
Abdulrahman H. Alamri and Lexie Mooney of Dragos write: The third quarter (July – September) of 2024 brought transformative shifts to the ransomware landscape, emphasizing its dynamic and continuously evolving nature. The ransomware threat ecosystem remained highly active in the third quarter, fueled by new groups, rebranding of existing entities, expansion of initial access broker…
Securities and Exchange Commission Settles Charges Against Flagstar for Misleading Investors About Citrix Data Breach
ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEEDING File No. 3-22360 December 16, 2024 – The Securities and Exchange Commission today filed settled charges against Flagstar Bancorp, Inc. (now known as “Flagstar Financial, Inc.”), for making materially misleading statements regarding a cybersecurity attack on Flagstar’s network in late 2021 (the “Citrix Breach”). The SEC’s order finds that Flagstar negligently made materially misleading…
Japanese publisher paid BlackSuit $3 million, but BlackSuit leaked their data anyway – reports
Kyodo News reports that Japanese publishing firm Kadokawa Corporation paid Black Suit $2.98 million in cryptocurrency after a ransomware attack in June. But looking at BlackSuit’s leak site, it appears BlackSuit leaked their data anyway. A screenshot of some of the negotiations in mid-June published by Kyodo News reveals that BlackSuit was demanding $8.25 million…
China-Based Hacker Charged for Conspiring to Develop and Deploy Malware That Exploited Tens of Thousands of Firewalls Worldwide
A federal court in Hammond, Indiana, unsealed an indictment today charging Guan Tianfeng, a citizen of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for his involvement in a conspiracy to hack indiscriminately into firewall devices worldwide in 2020. Guan and his co-conspirators worked at the offices of Sichuan Silence Information Technology Co. Ltd. to discover and…
Is KillSec3 Trying to Extort Victims Using Publicly Leaked Data?
KillSec3 is a ransomware group, but is it really encrypting its victims these days? Recent data suggests that its affiliate(s) may be trying to extort victims using data that has already been publicly leaked. The following was researched and written by Dissent Doe, JayeLTee, and a third researcher who prefers to remain in the shadows….