In December 2021, the number of weekly ransomware infections in Russian organizations increased by 50% compared to the average number of incidents in the January-November period, Izvestia was told by Check Point Research. This is due, among other things, to the fact that an updated version of the Emotet virus is being distributed in Russia. The owners of the program often sell access to the infrastructure of the victim company to ransomware.
Since the discovery of a new version of Emotet (found by Israeli researchers on November 15), the company has recorded 174 infected computers in Russia. Companies in the financial sector were hit hardest, accounting for 40% of incidents.
“After 10 months of downtime, Emotet has evolved with new features and tools. For example, management has been improved, in addition to the original method of infection, an installer for malicious packages of fake Windows applications that imitate the official ones has appeared, ”said Check Point Research.
The growth in the number of attacks in Russia using the new version of Emotet was also confirmed by Alexey Vishnyakov, head of the malware detection department at Positive Technologies. According to him, the frequency of incidents with ransomware will correlate with the number of infections with this sample of the virus.
Oleg Kupreev, a leading expert in the botnet research group at Kaspersky Lab, said that the new Emotet sample “rocked” the information security industry. But so far the specialist has not heard of high-profile incidents with its use. According to Oleg Kupreev, now only the growth of a botnet (a network of infected devices) is observed.
Emotional reaction: a surge in the activity of ransomware hackers recorded in the Russian Federation
Source: IZ
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
