November 9, 2021

Europe’s largest consumer electronics retailer, MediaMarkt suffers ransomware attack

On Monday 8th of November 2021, MediaMarkt, Europe’s largest consumer electronics retailer experienced a ransomware attack which has led to IT systems being shut down and disrupts to stores in Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg. No ransomware gang has been named yet. Although a MediaMarkt spokesperson has confirmed that the company had been hit by a cyber-attack on the morning […]
November 3, 2021

BlackMatter affiliates move to LockBit to continue extortion of BlackMatter ransomware victims after BlackMatter shutdown

With the threat actors behind BlackMatter Ransomware announcing they were shutting down on Monday 1st of November 2021, the remaining affiliates have been moving their victims to the competing ransomware gang. LockBit to continue the extortion of their victims. This has been proven by the fact that in existing BlackMatter negotiation chats to victims, affiliates are now providing victims links […]
November 1, 2021

Handa Hospital in Tokushima Prefecture disrupted heavily by ransomware attack

On Sunday 31st of October 2021, Tsurugi municipal Handa Hospital in Tokushima Prefecture suffered a ransomware attack which disrupted the operations of the hospital and involved electronic records of over 85,000 patients being made inaccessible. Indications of the incident were noticed at 12:30 a.m. when many of hospital’s printers started to print out messages that stated the hospital’s data had […]
November 1, 2021

HelloKitty ransomware gang expend their extortion tactics to DDoS attacks

On Thursday 28th of October 2021, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a TLP: WHITE flash alert where they warned that threat actors behind the Hello Kitty/FiveHands ransomware are now using distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks as a measure to apply pressure to their victims who does not respond quickly to their demands or does not pay the […]
October 30, 2021

Chaos ransomware variant targets Minecraft players in Japan

On Thursday 28th of October 2021, cyber security researchers from FortiGuard Labs released a report revealing they had recently discovered variant of the Chaos ransomware that is being used to target Minecraft players in Japan. The FortiGuard Labs researchers have stated that this variant is unique due to the fact they not only encrypt certain files of a size smaller […]
October 27, 2021

Grief ransomware gang adds the National Rifle Association of America as a victim

On Wednesday 27th of October 2021, the Grief ransomware gang added The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) to their data leak as a victim of one of their attacks. The gang provide evidence of the attack by providing screenshots of Excel spreadsheets containing US tax information and investments amounts. They also have leaked a 2.7 MB archive titled ‘National […]
October 26, 2021

FBI releases flash alert against Ranzy Locker ransomware

On Monday 25th of October 2021, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced that Ranzy Locker ransomware operators have compromised at least 30 US companies this year from various industry sectors. In a TLP: WHITE flash alert, the FBI states that the victims of the Ranzy Locker ransomware attacks included “the construction subsector of the critical manufacturing sector, […]
October 22, 2021

All extortion gangs called on to attack US interests by Groove ransomware gang

On Friday 22nd of October 2021, the Groove ransomware gang released a Russian blog post in Russian which calls for all other ransomware operations to target US interests. This blog comes about after REvil was taken down because of an international law enforcement operation that included support from the FBI. “I urge not to attack Chinese companies, because where do […]
October 22, 2021

A data breach investigated by GPDP after ransomware attack on SIAE

On Thursday 21st of October 2021, the Italian data protection authority Garante per la Protezione dei Dati Personali (GPDP) announced they were investigating a data breach of Società Italiana degli Autori ed Editori which is Italy’s copyright protection government agency. Currently the GPDP is stating that the investigation is looking at whether threat actors were able to steal the personal […]