ENISA Warns About Hacktivist, Ransomware Crossover
Cyberwarfare / Nation-State Attacks
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Fraud Management & Cybercrime
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Ransomware
Hacktivists Are More likely to More and more Undertake Cybercrime Ways, Report Says
Ransomware hacks and self-declared hacktivist denial-of-services attacks were the most prolific threat to European Union members over the 12-month period ending in June, the EU cyber agency warned, adding that the nexus between nation-state hackers and hacktivist groups poses an emerging threat.
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Between July 2023 and June, the European Union Company for Cybersecurity – referred to as ENISA – noticed a “notable escalation” in cyberattacks, a cyberthreat evaluation report from the company says.
“The prime risk was distributed-denial-of-service and it seems to focus on your complete vary of sectors. These are adopted by ransomware assaults and data-related threats,” ENISA stated.
State-aligned hacktivist teams are essentially the most energetic risk actors behind DDoS assaults, ENISA stated, attributing the surge in assaults to the geopolitical tensions linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russian-aligned hacktivist group NoName057 and Russia intelligence-backed Cyber Military of Russia had been among the many most energetic risk actors behind DDoS assaults towards EU companies.
The EU elections in June and the Paris Olympics in July additionally brought about a surge in assaults from DDoS operators seeking to disrupt the operations.
Within the case of ransomware, monetary theft was the primary driver, though some hacktivist teams are actually deploying ransomware to attract consideration to their political causes.
“Alongside the mixing of hacktivism with state-nexus exercise, it’s seemingly hacktivists will more and more undertake cybercrime techniques, generally with direct or oblique help from these state-nexus teams,” the report says.
LockBit was among the many most energetic ransomware till its disruption by regulation enforcement companies in February. Different energetic ransomware-as-a-service teams focusing on the EU organizations included Clop and Play.
Iranian and Russian risk actors had been essentially the most observable nation-state teams. Chinese language actors, particularly, are compromising edge units resembling distant monitoring and administration software program to evade detection (see: Chinese Hackers Penetrated Unclassified Dutch Network).