Cybersecurity firm Sophos has warned that many organizations across the globe are being targeted by simultaneous cyber-attacks, where a single corporate network is hit by multiple attackers. Research claims that the time frame to launch simultaneous cyber attacks varies and can be anything between a few days, weeks, or months.
In most cases, cyber attacks are being linked to malware, mostly ransomware, and the three prominent gangs that are striking were found to be HIVE, LockBIT, and BlackCat malware.
Peter Mackenzie, the Director of Sophos Incident Response Team, came up with a reason for such multiple cyber-attacks as lack of coordination between response teams to patch up vulnerabilities and misconfiguration as soon as they are detected.
Interestingly, the security research teams from Sophos found that some malware gangs were found patching up vulnerabilities to block other competitors from launching attacks. While in one form, the activity looks promising, in the other form, it is still concerning- as the malware that was induced first not only tries to block other malware from entering the network but also tries to nurture other evolutionary malware ecosystems from its family to emerge into a bigger threat.
Sophos is issuing an advisory that companies should follow a security hygiene where they need to keep all software up to date, bug fixing should be done as per priority, cut down mis-configuration errors, launch quicker response to vulnerability fixing and never paying a ransom and to notify the law enforcement about the cyber-attacks.
