Cyber Security Blog

The cybersecurity attack landscape moves fast, really fast. Last year, not a week passed that didn’t bring about news on a new ransomware incident. Of course ransomware’s very nature lends itself to newsworthy headlines based on how incredibly damaging to businesses this class of attacks can be.

July has been a busy month for the distributors of GandCrab ransomware. After about two months with no major update, the cybercrime gang behind GandCrab released version 4, and a few days later, version 4.1. The primary delivery method is via compromised WordPress websites, which have been hijacked to include fake crack application pages, which in turn redirect to the GandCrab executable. Other distribution methods are Exploit Kits (EK) and malicious email campaigns.

GandCrab Ransomware

These days, most malware employs long chain attack and anti-analysis techniques to make it more difficult to detect the payload and harder to analyze by security researchers. Such is the case with GandCrab, a new ransomware strain that entered the scene late last month and is currently active.

Ransomware remained a major cybersecurity threat in 2017, leaving a trail of victims across all industries, company sizes and geographical borders. Phishing emails are the top ransomware delivery mechanism and they grow in number and sophistication daily. According to IBM, the number of ransomware-infected emails increased 6,000% this year. And the days of easily spotted spelling mistakes and obvious scams are long gone. Today’s phishing attacks are clever and subtle enough to trick even security veterans. 

In the last 48 hours, a hurricane of e-mails has crossed my Inbox, with breathless and self-congratulatory subject lines like "Our latest release detects Bad Rabbit" and "XYZ now protects XYZ customers from Bad Rabbit." In other words, "If you use our product, you were exposed to Bad Rabbit, but now that we know about it (from someone else) we deployed an update." Once you decode the messages, it’s clear that the content is not newsworthy, differentiating or exciting, it’s just an excuse to partake in the latest frenzy.

Last week, a massive wave of spam email that infects victims with a new type of ransomware, dubbed "Jaff", flooded networks across Europe, North America and Australia. Estimates put the number of malicious emails in the tens of millions.

Last week’s news about cyberattacks was sobering. Cybercrime is rampant and notorious. “WannaCry,” “Jaff,” and “Cerber” - the names of the attacks that got the most publicity - read like names of gangsters from the days of Prohibition, with unique personalities, techniques that range from brutal to devious, and a lurid line-up of targets and victims. Only the wanted posters are missing.

Cerber ransomware is one of the most sophisticated and popular ransomware families, attacking victims across the globe. Additional popular ransomware families in the cybercriminal’s arsenal include Locky (Osiris), Spora, Shade and several others.

Cybersecurity had a turbulent 2016, to say the least. We saw the rise of ransomware, the emergence of IoT botnets, landmark security legislation and Yahoo’s disclosure about its 1-billion-record-hack, the largest in history.

As an eventful 2016 draws to a close, what should we expect in cybersecurity for 2017? In this blog series, Morphisec’s security experts predict trends and technologies in 2017. Today’s post is from Netta Schmeidler, Morphisec VP Product.