europol.europa.eu - Between 14 and 17 July, a joint international operation, known as Eastwood and coordinated by Europol and Eurojust, targeted the cybercrime network NoName057(16). Law enforcement and judicial authorities from Czechia, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the United States took simultaneous actions against offenders and infrastructure belonging to the pro-Russian cybercrime network. The investigation was also supported by ENISA, as well as Belgium, Canada, Estonia, Denmark, Latvia, Romania and Ukraine. The private parties ShadowServer and abuse.ch also assisted in the technical part of the operation.
The actions led to the disruption of an attack-infrastructure consisting of over one hundred computer systems worldwide, while a major part of the group's central server infrastructure was taken offline. Germany issued six warrants for the arrest of offenders living in the Russian Federation. Two of these persons are accused of being the main instigators responsible for the activities of "NoName057(16)". In total, national authorities have issued seven arrest warrants, which are directed, inter alia, against six Russian nationals for their involvement in the NoName057(16) criminal activities. All of the suspects are listed as internationally wanted, and in some cases, their identities are published in media. Five profiles were also published on the EU Most Wanted website.
National authorities have reached out to several hundred of individuals believed to be supporters of the cybercrime network. The messages, shared via a popular messaging application, inform the recipient of the official measures highlighting the criminal liability they bear for their actions pursuant to national legislations. Individuals acting for NoName057(16) are mainly Russian-speaking sympathisers who use automated tools to carry out distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Operating without formal leadership or sophisticated technical skills, they are motivated by ideology and rewards.
American business service behemoth Conduent has confirmed the January data breach resulted in hackers stealing customer details, although there’s no evidence that the info was leaked online.
The attack hit the company in mid-January this year, Conduent confirmed on a FORM-8K filing with the SEC. Attackers penetrated digital defenses and accessed a “limited portion” of Conduent’s environment.
Several of Conduent’s clients experienced disruption in the initial days of the attack. For example, Wisconsin’s Department of Children and Families said the outage impacted payees who receive their payments via an electronic transfer system.
A cyber security expert warns the hack, uncovered by i, presents a 'terrible threat to public health safety'
In late 2023 and early 2024, the ransomware ecosystem experienced repeated disruption of its most prolific Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) groups at the hands of international Law Enforcement (LE). Alphv’s dark web data leak site was seized, then unseized, then re-seized in a December 2023 law enforcement operation that seemingly failed to deter the group – until AlphV ultimately claimed to disband via an apparent exit scam, immediately following a high-profile attack against Change Healthcare in March 2024. LockBit experienced a far more dramatic and well-marketed disruption, “Operation Cronos,” in February 2024, leading to the compromise of its infrastructure, internal operational details, and data. While LockBit has ostensibly continued operations, its highly publicized disruption raises the question of whether the group will be able to continue operating and attracting affiliates at the level they once enjoyed.
The LockBit gang is relaunching its ransomware operation on a new infrastructure less than a week after law enforcement hacked their servers, and is threatening to focus more of their attacks on the government sector.
