Security News

A cyberattack on Bridgestone Americas, one of the largest manufacturers of tires in the world, has been claimed by the LockBit ransomware gang. No details about the incident emerged until today when the LockBit ransomware gang claimed the attack by adding Bridgestone Americas to the list of their victims.

Ransomware attacks extended into the industrial sector last year to such a degree that this type of incident became the number one threat in the industrial sector. Two ransomware groups, LockBit and Conti, have been most active compromising organizations with an Industrial Control System/Operational Technology environment in 2021.

It's more expensive and riskier than ever to launch ransomware attacks, and ransomware groups have responded by mounting fewer attacks with higher ransomware demands, Coveware has reported, finding that the average ransomware payment in the fourth quarter of last year climbed by 130 percent to reach $322,168. First discovered by the MalwareHunterTeam, the operators of the Rust-coded BlackCat ransomware call themselves ALPHV, but the MalwareHunterTeam dubbed them BlackCat after the image used on the payment page the victims must visit on Tor to pay, Bleeping Computer reported.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has released technical details and indicators of compromise associated with LockBit ransomware attacks in a new flash alert published this Friday. Two years later, in June 2021, LockBit announced the LockBit 2.0 RaaS on their data leak site after ransomware actors were banned from posting on cybercrime forums [1, 2]. With the relaunch, the ransomware gang redesigned Tor sites and overhauled the malware, adding more advanced features, including the automatic encryption of devices across Windows domains via Active Directory group policies.

LockBit is the latest ransomware gang whose Linux encryptor has been discovered to be focusing on the encryption of VMware ESXi virtual machines.Due to this, ransomware gangs have evolved their tactics to create Linux encryptors that specifically target the popular VMware vSphere and ESXi virtualization platforms over the past year.