UNC3944, which overlaps with public reporting on Scattered Spider, is a financially-motivated threat actor characterized by its persistent use of social engineering and brazen communications with victims. In early operations, UNC3944 largely targeted telecommunications-related organizations to support SIM swap operations. However, after shifting to ransomware and data theft extortion in early 2023, they impacted organizations in a broader range of industries. Since then, we have regularly observed UNC3944 conduct waves of targeting against a specific sector, such as financial services organizations in late 2023 and food services in May 2024. Notably, UNC3944 has also previously targeted prominent brands, possibly in an attempt to gain prestige and increased attention by news media.
Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) observed a decline in UNC3944 activity after 2024 law enforcement actions against individuals allegedly associated with the group. Threat actors will often temporarily halt or significantly curtail operations after an arrest, possibly to reduce law enforcement attention, rebuild capabilities and/or partnerships, or shift to new tooling to evade detection. UNC3944’s existing ties to a broader community of threat actors could potentially help them recover from law enforcement actions more quickly.
Recent public reporting has suggested that threat actors used tactics consistent with Scattered Spider to target a UK retail organization and deploy DragonForce ransomware. Subsequent reporting by BBC News indicates that actors associated with DragonForce claimed responsibility for attempted attacks at multiple UK retailers. Notably, the operators of DragonForce ransomware recently claimed control of RansomHub, a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) that seemingly ceased operations in March of this year. UNC3944 was a RansomHub affiliate in 2024, after the ALPHV (aka Blackcat) RaaS shut down. While GTIG has not independently confirmed the involvement of UNC3944 or the DragonForce RaaS, over the past few years, retail organizations have been increasingly posted on tracked data leak sites (DLS) used by extortion actors to pressure victims and/or leak stolen victim data. Retail organizations accounted for 11 percent of DLS victims in 2025 thus far, up from about 8.5 percent in 2024 and 6 percent in 2022 and 2023. It is plausible that threat actors including UNC3944 view retail organizations as attractive targets, given that they typically possess large quantities of personally identifiable information (PII) and financial data. Further, these companies may be more likely to pay a ransom demand if a ransomware attack impacts their ability to process financial transactions.
On Tuesday, August 29, 2023, the Federal Bureau of Investigations Los Angeles announced that they and other international partners disrupted the Qakbot malware infrastructure in a successful takedown.
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Cloud cryptojacking, a type of cyberattack that uses computing power to mine cryptocurrency, could result in financial loss to targeted organizations due to the compute fees that can be incurred from the abuse.
