Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

In the context of ongoing cyber risk assessment , ransomware is one of the most commercial and destructive forms of cybercrime. Amidst the ocean of crime groups within cyberspace, the Cl0p ransomware syndicate is one of the more refined and persistent threats. This group of cyber-thieves has made notorious headlines with aggressive forms of extortion and campaigns.

Akira ransomware is a destructive malware that has ravaged industries since its discovery in March 2023. The operations have mostly targeted businesses in North America, the UK, and Australia. Akira ransomware’s darkweb site Akira employs a double-extortion tactic; it does not only encrypt the victim's data but also exfiltrates the data, and subsequently threatens to leak it on the internet unless the ransom demand is met.

Ransomware groups claimed responsibility for 5,461 attacks in 2024, with 1,204 of these attacks being publicly confirmed by victim organizations, according to Comparitech’s latest Ransomware Roundup report. The average ransom demand was more than $3.5 million, and the average ransom paid was $9.5 million. Many of these attacks involved data theft extortion, leading to the breach of nearly 200 million records.

The recent Codefinger ransomware attack has sent shockwaves through the IT community, specifically targeting businesses relying on AWS S3 storage services. This breach highlights the importance of prioritizing security “best practices” to protect even the most reliable platforms.

On January 15th, the FSOCIETY ransomware group published on their official DLS (data leak site) that they have begun a partnership with the rising Funksec group. The FunkSec ransomware group first emerged publicly in late 2024 and rapidly gained prominence by publishing over 85 claimed victims—more than any other ransomware group in the month of December.

In the world of malware, common ransomware schemes aim to take the data within databases (considered the "gold" in the vault of any organization) and hold them hostage, promising data recovery upon ransom payment. Typically, most of these schemes follow an expected script: encrypting files, requesting payment, and then delivering a decryption key. This model, while damaging, generally allows victims to recover if they pay the ransom.

SenseOn has detected a large increase in the Lumma Stealer malware targeting customers over the past few months. Unlike traditional malware strains, Lumma Stealer has been leveraging a unique, and increasingly effective, access vector of fake CAPTCHA verification prompts. These deceptive prompts trick users into running malicious commands on their device eventually injecting malicious processes into legitimate programs. This attack vector is expected to become even more prevalent throughout 2025.

On January 13, 2025, Halcyon released a research blog about the Codefinger group conducting a ransomware campaign targeting Amazon S3 buckets. The attacks leverage AWS’s Server-Side Encryption with Customer Provided Keys (SSE-C) to encrypt data. The threat actors then demand ransom payments for the symmetric AES-256 keys required to decrypt it.