Acronis Threat Research Unit

The infamous Hive ransomware gang has been busy lately. Just in the last week, they've claimed responsibility for four new victims.

Leading hospitality company InterContinental Hotels Group PLC (also known as IHG Hotels & Resorts) has been impacted by a cyberattack. The hotel group's APIs are down and showing 502 and 503 HTTP errors, while customers are unable to log into their accounts.

A new Instagram phishing campaign has been discovered, attempting to scam users of the popular social media platform by luring them with the offer of a coveted "blue badge" — official verification of the user's profile. As part of the alleged verification process, users are asked to reveal their password and other sensitive information, all of which is sent directly to the attacker.

The LockBit ransomware gang has announced that it is working to take its operation to the triple-extortion level. The gang is now looking to add DDoS as an extortion tactic on top of encrypting data and exfiltrating it (to threaten future leaks).

Baker & Taylor, the world's largest distributor of books to libraries worldwide, confirmed it's still working on restoring systems after being hit by ransomware more than a week ago. With an annual revenue of $4.6 billion, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based firm currently services more than 5,000 public and academic libraries.

The Dominican Republic's Instituto Agrario Dominicano (IAD) has suffered a ransomware attack by the Quantum group. According to the ransom note, at least four physical servers and eight virtual servers with the databases, applications and emails were compromised.

The RansomEXX ransomware gang is claiming responsibility for the cyberattack against Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP), which was disclosed by the company on August 8, 2022.

Multi-national tech conglomerate Cisco has confirmed that the Yanluowang ransomware gang breached its corporate network in late May, and that the group tried to extort them by threatening to leak stolen files online. The Yanluowang gang claims to have stolen 2.8 GB of data, consisting of approximately 3,100 files which Cisco has described as "not sensitive."

German electronics manufacturer Semikron has reported that they were hit by a ransomware attack. The LV ransomware group has claimed responsibility for this attack, and is threatening to leak 2 TB worth of stolen data if their ransom demands are not met.

The ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware gang claims to have stolen more than 150 GB of data from Creos Luxembourg S.A., a company which manages natural gas pipelines and electrical networks in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The alleged stolen data consists of 180,000 files, including contracts, agreements, passports, bills and emails.

Researchers have observed a new post-exploitation attack framework in the wild. Manjusaka, as it's called, can be deployed as an alternative to the popular Cobalt Strike toolset ⁠— or parallel to it for redundancy.

Security researchers have discovered that QBot malware is now using the legitimate Windows Calculator app for DLL side-loading attacks. The method continues to be used in current malspam campaigns.