{"id":39063,"date":"2021-01-09T08:00:03","date_gmt":"2021-01-09T08:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/405e63ff-0bb4-42a9-9452-72cf464233fe"},"modified":"2021-01-09T08:00:03","modified_gmt":"2021-01-09T08:00:03","slug":"some-ransomware-gangs-are-going-after-top-execs-to-pressure-companies-into-paying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/some-ransomware-gangs-are-going-after-top-execs-to-pressure-companies-into-paying\/","title":{"rendered":"Some ransomware gangs are going after top execs to pressure companies into paying"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"image image-original shortcode-image\"><span class=\"img aspect-set \"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/zdnet3.cbsistatic.com\/hub\/i\/r\/2020\/11\/23\/a0f663c7-ef8b-4d59-a57b-2b059243e154\/resize\/1200xauto\/7664f84f94b6ed7d5eff0e7c2f100cdd\/istock-1133483350.jpg\" class alt=\"Worried Businessman Got Virus and Data Loss on Laptop Computer\" height=\"auto\" width=\"1200\"><\/span><figcaption><span class=\"caption\"><\/span><span class=\"credit\"> Getty Images\/iStockphoto <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A new trend is emerging among ransomware groups where they prioritize stealing data from workstations used by top executives and managers in order to obtain &#8220;juicy&#8221; information that they can later use to pressure and extort a company&#8217;s top brass into approving large ransom payouts.<\/p>\n<p><em>ZDNet&nbsp;<\/em>first learned of this new tactic earlier this week during a phone call with a company that paid a multi-million dollar ransom to the Clop ransomware gang.<\/p>\n<p>Similar calls with other Clop victims and email interviews with cybersecurity firms later confirmed that this wasn&#8217;t just a one-time fluke, but instead a technique that the Clop gang had fine-tuned across the past few months.<\/p>\n<h3>Making the extortion personal<\/h3>\n<p>The technique is an evolution of what we&#8217;ve been seen from ransomware gangs lately.<\/p>\n<p>For the past two years, ransomware gangs have evolved from targeting home consumers in random attacks to going after large corporations in very targeted intrusions.<\/p>\n<p>These groups breach corporate networks, steal sensitive files they can get their hands on, encrypt files, and then leave ransom notes on the trashed computers.<\/p>\n<p>In some cases, the ransom note informs companies that they have to pay a ransom demand to receive a decryption key. In case data was stolen, some ransom notes also inform victims that if they don&#8217;t pay the ransom fee, the stolen data will be published online on so-called &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/heres-a-list-of-all-the-ransomware-gangs-who-will-steal-and-leak-your-data-if-you-dont-pay\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">leak sites<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<section class=\"sharethrough-top\" data-component=\"medusaContentRecommendation\" data-medusa-content-recommendation-options=\"{&quot;promo&quot;:&quot;promo_zd_recommendation_sharethrough_top_in_article_desktop&quot;,&quot;spot&quot;:&quot;dfp-in-article&quot;}\"> <\/section>\n<p>Ransomware groups hope that companies will be desperate to avoid having proprietary data or financial numbers posted online and accessible to competitors and would be more willing to pay a ransom demand instead of restoring from backups.<\/p>\n<p>In other cases, some ransomware gangs have told companies that the publishing of their data would also amount to a data breach, which would in many cases also incur a fine from authorities, as well as reputational damage, something that companies also want to avoid.<\/p>\n<p>However, ransomware gangs aren&#8217;t always able to get their hands on proprietary data or sensitive information in all the intrusions they carry out. This reduces their ability to negotiate and pressure victims.<\/p>\n<p>This is why, in recent intrusions, a group that has often used the Clop ransomware strain has been specifically searching for workstations inside a breached company that are used by its top managers.<\/p>\n<p>The group sifts through a manager&#8217;s files and emails, and exfiltrates data that they think might be useful in threatening, embarrassing, or putting pressure on a company&#8217;s management \u2014 the same people who&#8217;d most likely be in charge of approving their ransom demand days later.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is a new modus operandi for ransomware actors, but I can say I&#8217;m not surprised,&#8221; Stefan Tanase, a cyber intelligence expert at the CSIS Group, told&nbsp;<em>ZDNet&nbsp;<\/em>in an email this week.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Ransomware usually goes for the &#8216;crown jewels&#8217; of the business they are targeting,&#8221; Tanase said. &#8220;It&#8217;s usually fileservers or databases when it comes to exfiltrating data with the purpose of leaking it. But it makes sense for them to go after exec machines if that&#8217;s what&#8217;s going to create the biggest impact.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3>Clop already uses this tactic, REvil too, but scarcely<\/h3>\n<p>Brett Callow, a threat analyst at cybersecurity firm Emsisoft, told&nbsp;<em>ZDNet&nbsp;<\/em>that, so far, they&#8217;ve only seen tactics like these in incidents involving the Clop ransomware.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This style of blackmail may be the modus operandi of a particular [Clop] affiliate, and that affiliate could also work for other [ransomware] groups,&#8221; Callow told us.<\/p>\n<p>The Emsisoft analyst described this evolution in extortion tactics as &#8220;not at all surprising&#8221; and &#8220;a logical and inevitable progression.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Over the last couple of years, the tactics used by ransomware groups have become increasingly extreme, and they now use every possible method to pressure their victims,&#8221; Callow said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Other tactics include harassing and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/ransomware-gangs-are-now-cold-calling-victims-if-they-restore-from-backups-without-paying\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">threatening phone calls<\/a>&nbsp;to both executives and customers and business partners,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/campuscodi\/status\/1326217450078212097\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-component=\"externalLink\">Facebook ads<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/malwrhunterteam\/status\/1347458694053822464\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-component=\"externalLink\">press outreach<\/a>, and threats to reveal companies&#8217; &#8216;dirty laundry&#8217;.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But in a similar interview with Evgueni Erchov, director of incident response and cyber threat intel at Arete IR, it appears that an affiliate of the REvil (Sodinokibi) ransomware-as-a-service operations has already adopted this technique from the Clop gang (or this might be the same Clop affiliate which Callow mentioned above).<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Specifically, the threat actor was able to find documents related to ongoing litigations and the victims&#8217; internal discussions related to that,&#8221; Erchov told&nbsp;<em>ZDNet<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Then the threat actor used that information and reached out directly to executives over email and threatened to release the data of the alleged &#8216;misconduct by the management&#8217; publicly,&#8221; Erchov said.<\/p>\n<p>Allan Liska, a senior security architect at Recorded Future, told&nbsp;<em>ZDNet<\/em>&nbsp;that they&#8217;ve only seen this tactic with Clop attacks, but they don&#8217;t rule out other ransomware actors adopting it as well.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Ransomware gangs are very quick to adopt new techniques, especially those that make ransom payment more likely,&#8221; Liska said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It also makes sense in the evolution of extortion tactics, as ransomware gangs have gone after bigger targets they have had to try different ways of forcing payment.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Leaking stolen data is the one everyone is aware of, but other tactics, such as REvil threatening to email details of the attack to stock exchanges, have also been tried,&#8221; Liska said.<\/p>\n<h3>Not always truthful<\/h3>\n<p>However, Bill Siegel, the CEO and co-founder of security firm Coveware, said that in many cases, the data used in these extortion schemes aimed at a company&#8217;s management aren&#8217;t always truthful or living up to expectations.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They [the ransomware groups] make all sorts of threats about what they may or may not have,&#8221; Siegel told&nbsp;<em>ZDNet<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have never encountered a case where stolen data actually showed evidence of corporate or personal malfeasance. For the most part, it is just a scare tactic to increase the likelihood of payment,&#8221; Siegel said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Let&#8217;s remember these are criminal extortionists. They will say or claim all sorts of fantastical things if it makes them money.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>ZDNet would also like to thank security firm<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.s2wlab.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" data-component=\"externalLink\"><em>&nbsp;S2W Lab<\/em><\/a><em>&nbsp;for their help on this article.<\/em><\/p>\n<p> READ MORE <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/some-ransomware-gangs-are-going-after-top-execs-to-pressure-companies-into-paying\/#ftag=RSSbaffb68\">HERE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ransomware gangs are prioritizing stealing data from workstations used by executives in the hopes of finding and using valuable information to use in the extortion process.<br \/>\nREAD MORE HERE&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39064,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-zdnet-security"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Some ransomware gangs are going after top execs to pressure companies into paying 2026 | ThreatsHub Cybersecurity News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"ThreatsHub Cybersecurity News | ThreatsHub.org | Cloud Security &amp; Cyber Threats Analysis Hub. 100% Free OSINT Threat Intelligent and Cybersecurity News.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link 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