As more companies are shifting their applications and data to cloud platforms, ransomware spreading gangs are said to be focusing on breaking into these treasure troves to make easy money.
Cybersecurity firm Trend Micro and Intel 471 have discovered that hackers have now set their eyes on cloud services and technologies to increase their chances of minting money from unfortunate victims.
Adding to their luck is the global COVID-19 crisis that has forced most of the corporate employees to depend on remote operations to keep their firm functioning normally intact.
Early this week, Microsoft issued an update that hackers are turning sophisticated to target healthcare companies that are into the research and production of Corona Virus Vaccine.
Security researchers from Intel 471 have not only supported this theory but also added that the cyber crooks spreading file encrypting malware are now busy finding vulnerabilities in cloud platforms to access data stored on these digital troves.
According to the report, DopplePaymer, Egregor, Ragnar Locker, NetWalker, REVIL and RYUK are all found offering ransomware as a service to victims from early this year and are seen indulging in double extortion efforts.
What’s interesting in the Trend Micro report is the fact that hackers are seen moving operations to cloud to speed up their objectives. So, they are seen hacking cloud platforms from the same origin as most of the data troves available on the dark web are related to cloud logins.
As cloud gives the users the privilege of scalability and agility to networks, hackers are seen seeking the same success on a par with other users. The hosting of stolen digital data on IP storage platforms gives the customers to ransomware gangs easy access to analyze and extract the data to conduct malicious activity. And as the hacking gangs are offering pay for access schemes, this model of cyber crime is turning a sure shot monetizing scheme for hackers.
All public and private firms are at risk of becoming a victim to ransomware as a service based attacks, regardless of the fact of whether they have adopted to cloud based services and technologies.
Trend Micro in association with Intel 471 is advising companies to craft and implement countermeasures to avoid falling prey to malevolent cyber schemes that either end up compromising the servers and eventually the data.
