Cybersecurity

In a follow up to White House statements on Monday, March 21, 2022 regarding evolving intelligence, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) convened an unclassified call on Tuesday to address observed Russian Government preparatory cyber activity against the U.S.

Multiple statements emanated from the White House yesterday regarding evolving intelligence that the Russian government is exploring options for potential cyber attacks and that preparatory actions have been observed against U.S. critical infrastructure. WaterISAC posted and distributed an advisory, Update from the White House – Act Now to Protect Against Potential Cyber Attacks, shortly after the initial White House release.

The infamous malware botnet Emotet continues to resurge and propagate through persistent scams. Recently, Emotet was observed in a campaign leveraging tax season themed lures and impersonating the IRS to trick victims into downloading the malicious botnet. In these new campaigns, Emotet threat actors send out supposed “tax documents” for recipients to view or fill out and return to the sender.

Security researchers have identified a new Ransomware-as-a-Service (Raas) family dubbed LokiLocker that has been active in the wild since August 2021. The ransomware employs file encryption to extort its victims and data wiping capabilities that can make an infected device unusable if a victim fails to pay the ransom. To obfuscate its activities, LokiLocker displays a fake Windows Update screen and disables multiple Windows security applications. It also deletes backup files and shadow copies to prevent data recovery.