Infostealer Malware: An Introduction
Infostealer malware represents one of the most underrated threats to corporate and consumer information security today. These sophisticated remote access Trojans (RATs) silently infect computers and systematically exfiltrate massive amounts of sensitive information from the host to threat actors’ command and control (C2) infrastructure. Their primary targets include: Once the information has been exfiltrated, it […]
Dark Web Forum Arrests, Columbus Ransomware Attack Updates, and American Background Info Data Leak
Keeping up with the world of cybercrime is important but can often feel overwhelming for security practitioners. Leaky Weekly is a podcast hosted by security researcher Nick Ascoli as he dives into the most pressing stories on data leaks, cybercrime, and the dark web in the last week or so. On this episode of Leaky […]
Cybercrime Current Events: AWS Takeover Campaign, Ransomware Attack on Columbus, and City of Columbus Sues Ransomware Researcher Whistleblower
There’s so much to keep up with in the world of cybercrime…especially for security practitioners. Leaky Weekly is a bi-weekly podcast hosted by security researcher Nick Ascoli as he dives into the most pressing stories on data leaks, cybercrime, and the dark web in the last week or so. On this episode of Leaky Weekly, […]
Cybercrime Current Events: Background Check Organization Breach, a Repossessed Ransomware Blog, Feuding Forums, and Double Arrest of “J.P. Morgan”
There’s so much to keep up with in the world of cybercrime…especially for security practitioners. Leaky Weekly is a bi-weekly podcast hosted by security researcher Nick Ascoli as he dives into the most pressing stories on data leaks, cybercrime, and the dark web in the last week or so. On this episode of Leaky Weekly, […]
Launching Leaky Weekly with Flare, Cybercrime Current Events Podcast
There’s so much to keep up with in the world of cybercrime…especially for security practitioners. Leaky Weekly is a bi-weekly podcast hosted by security researcher Nick Ascoli as he dives into the most pressing stories on data leaks, cybercrime, and the dark web in the last week or so. Tune in for current events every […]
Ransomware in Context: 2024, A Year of Tumultuous Change
2024 has started off dramatic shifts in the ransomware landscape. In December of 2023 international law enforcement took down the BlackCat leaks site, leading to the group removing all ethical restrictions for their affiliates and declaring all organizations in Western Europe and the United States viable targets to include nuclear power plants and childrens hospitals. […]
LockBit’s Conversation on XSS Forum with an Initial Access Broker
In February of 2024, admins of the Russian hacking forum XSS banned the primary LockBit account active on the forum. The ban was the result of a dispute between LockBit, and an initial access broker operating under the username “aa.” The following is a conversation between AA and LockBit, posted on XSS as aa sought […]
Threat Spotlight: Data Extortion Ransomware Threats
Over the last few years, the ransomware landscape has changed significantly. Between 2022 and 2023, ransomware attacks increased by more than 100% year-over-year, with more attacks consisting of double and triple extortion. At a high level, the categories of ransomware can be defined as: Modern ransomware attacks are no longer a lone individual sitting at […]
Implement Continuous Threat Exposure Management: A Quick Guide for 2024
This year, Gartner named “Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM)” as one of the top trends for Optimizing for Resilience. This is a response to increasing attack surfaces and thus cybercrime, and is the approach that best suits the evolving threat landscape. Organizations’ attack surfaces have exponentially increased over the past few years largely due to […]
Modern Cyber Warfare: Crowdsourced DDoS Attacks
Over the past few years, politically motivated threat actors have increasingly gone online to find allies for their causes. While ten years ago most hactivism like this was anonymous, modern actors favoring certain political elements or governments leverage a broader ecosystem. Since Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks require little technical skill, they offer a […]