Researchers for Avast have developed a decryptor for the Akira ransomware and released it for public download. The Akira ransomware appeared in March 2023 and since then, the gang claims successful attacks on various organizations in the education, finance and real estate industries, amongst others.
The LockBit ransomware group claims to have hacked Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), but the chip giant says only one of its suppliers was breached.
The notorious cybercrime group announced on Thursday on its website that it targeted TSMC, suggesting — based on the $70 million ransom demand — that it has stolen vast amounts of sensitive information. The victim was initially given seven days to respond, but the deadline has been extended to August 6 at the time of writing.
I stumbled upon an intriguing concept presented by Will Thomas (BushidoToken) in his blog post titled “Unmasking Ransomware Using Stylometric Analysis: Shadow, 8BASE, Rancoz.” This concept revolves around utilizing stylometry to identify potential modifications in new ransomware variants based on existing popular strains. If you’re interested, you can read the blog post here. (Notably, Will Thomas also appeared on Dark Net Diaries, discussing his tracking of the Revil ransomware.)
The huge profits of ransomware have led to a rapid evolution and professionalization of the wider cyber crime industry, and the rapid growth of a supporting underground marketplace of products and service providers.
A total 761 people had sensitive personal data hacked during a cyberattack on the education department of the Swiss city of Basel.