All these days the government agencies and corporate networks were busy in combating known ransomware groups such as REvil, Conti, DarkSide, CLOP and Egregor along with Babuk, DopplePaymer and Ragnar.
Now, a report released by the security firm Palo Alto Networks has confirmed that the list needs to have 4 new names added to list and those are AvosLocker, Hive, Hello Kitty and LockBit 2.0.
Unit 42 Security Team of Palo Alto Networks says that its research has found a rise in the spread of 4 new ransomware packages that have a history of harassing some multinational companies from the west till date.
Going deep into the details, LockBit ransomware that existed since Sept’19 and has transformed into a new version dubbed 2.0 and has compromised over 52 organizations till date and that includes well-known professional services provider Accenture.
Coming to the point of those spreading Avoslocker ransomware, their ransom demands stand between $50k to $70k. And they only accept Monero cryptocurrency for the decryption key. Names of companies that were targeted by this new ransomware group are being held for reasons.
Third in the list is Hive Ransomware group that has been active since June 2021 and is seen mostly targeting healthcare related companies and the victim counts stands at 28.
Forth in the list that has newly emerged is Hello Kitty Ransomware, that first appeared Dec’2020 was only seen targeting Windows systems. Now, the situation has changed and Hello Kitty is seen targeting Linux systems that are largely used by multinational companies that operate large databases for processing enormous data sets for various projects.
Note- Doel Santos led the analytical team at Unit 42 of Palo Alto Networks on the project of finding new ransomware groups that are on the rise.
