Over the past few years, ransomware attack rates and ransom amounts have climbed so significantly that the cyber attack has broken out of the IT and security community to capture headlines around the world. In early May 2021, a suspected Russian hacking group took Colonial Pipeline — which provides 45% of the East Coast’s supply of gasoline, diesel fuel, and jet fuel — offline for more than three days in an attack that made ransomware a household word.

Organizations are falling victim to ransomware attacks where data is stolen, but the victim isn’t being told about it. I have a theory as to why this is happening. Many assume data is being exfiltrated as part of a ransomware attack and it’s going to be used as part of the extortion component of the attack. But according to Arctic Wolf’s The State of Cybersecurity: 2024 Trends Report, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

In a significant development in cybersecurity, the threat actor known as Stargazer Goblin has established a complex network of fake GitHub accounts to facilitate a Distribution-as-a-Service (DaaS) operation. This network, comprising over 3,000 inauthentic accounts, has been actively spreading various information-stealing malware and generating $100,000 in illicit profits over the past year.

Read also: A Scattered Spider member arrested in the UK, LockBit affiliates plead guilty, and more.

Don't worry, I'm not trying to conjure images in your mind of Rod Stewart in his iconic leopard print trousers. Instead, I want to warn you about a cybercrime group that has gained notoriety for attacking VMware ESXi servers since February 2024.

By Olivia Betts and Adam Price In July 2024, CloudFlare identified that it can take cybercriminals as little as 22 minutes to weaponise a publicly available Proof-of-Concept (PoC) exploit following its release. The IT services management company noted an increase in scanning for disclosed Common and in attempts to weaponise available PoCs across 2023 and 2024.

MuddyWater deploys BugSleep malware, researchers discover malicious files on the npm registry, and Void Banshee exploits a Microsoft MHTML flaw.

On July 23, 2024, CrowdStrike Intelligence identified the phishing domain crowdstrike-office365com, which impersonates CrowdStrike and delivers malicious ZIP and RAR files containing a Microsoft Installer (MSI) loader. The loader ultimately executes Lumma Stealer packed with CypherIt.

The Chinese espionage group Daggerfly, also known as Evasive Panda or Bronze Highland, has significantly upgraded its malware arsenal, allowing it to target a wide range of operating systems including Windows, Linux, macOS, and Android. This development marks a notable escalation in the group's cyber capabilities, as detailed in a recent analysis by Symantec.

The modus operandi of cybercriminals is constantly changing. It comes as no surprise that, every so often, hackers switch up their methods to become more evasive. However, contrary to what we might imagine, these changes don’t always have to be innovative, or involve new attack strategies. Cybercriminals are increasingly opting to employ old-school techniques, and couple this with minimal investment.