Internet is the only fuel which has been fuelling small and big organizations during these challenging times.However, the National Security Agency National Security Agency (NSA) and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have issued a joint warning, asking organizations to develop capabilities which should allow them to immediately disconnect their key infrastructure from the internet and go manual.The NSA/CISA advisory came on the day when sports and fitness giant Garmin faced an outage, allegedly caused by a ransomware attack.The hacker group behind the Garmin attack is suspected to be Evil Corp, run by Russian hacker Maksim Yakubets.According to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) records, Maksim works under pseudo-name “AQUA”.
Earlier, the FBI had also announced a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Yakubets.The Garmin hack Garmin, the US based multinational tech firm, which also has its presence in India announced last week that it has been facing an outage which the company wasn’t able to fix by Monday morning.Although the company did not officially acknowledge the ransomware attack, inside accounts have confirmed to India Today that “the administrators did not have full control of some of their operational technology assets during the outage”.
Independent accounts have also posted leaks showing alleged extracted ransom notes, which corroborates the ransomware attack.#WastedLocker #Ransomware extension .garminwasted!
Sample https://t.co/HxiBmrUtJk pic.twitter.com/RNGRJNiUwv
— GrujaRS (@GrujaRS) July 25, 2020 The company specializes in GPS technology and wearable technology which includes health tracker and fitness watches.Garmin India did not answer specific questions asked by India Today although; it released a carefully drafted public statement which said, “Garmin has no indication that this outage has affected your data, including activity, payment or other personal information”.
What is a Ransomware Attack? “A ransomware attack is where a piece of software code is sent to an organization which encrypts their data and in order to decrypt the data the victim is asked to pay money,” Agnidipta Sarkar Director Cybersecurity CMS IT Services explains.So in order to regain control of their own data, the victim organizations end up paying ransom money to the attacker which is paid “often in form of crypto-currencies such as Bitcoins, because it’s difficult to trace,” explains Sarkar.While the exact amount sought by the attackers in Garmin’s case is not yet known, going by the global scale of it, the hack is believed to be one of the biggest public ransomware attacks in recent times.The Hacker with Lamborghini The 33 years old Russian hacker has been charged in the US and Europe for causing “financial losses in the tens of millions of dollars”.In December 2019, UK’s National Crime Agency released video footage of Maksi, where he was shown living an open luxurious life with his customized Lamborghini in Russia.Members of Evil Corp are living a lavish lifestyle, funded by the life savings of their victims.
If Maksim Yakubets, who used the online identity of ‘Aqua’, ever leaves the safety of Russia he will be arrested and extradited to the US.
pic.twitter.com/BdoaxZrFBK
— National Crime Agency (NCA) (@NCA_UK) December 5, 2019 “If Maksim Yakubets, who used the online identity of ‘Aqua’, ever leaves the safety of Russia he will be arrested and extradited to the US” NCA Director Rob Jones said in a statement.Maksim who allegedly runs his operation from the basements of Moscow cafes has employed around dozens people including 38 years old Igor Turashev, who is believed to be his administrator and controls the Dridex malware.
According to the FBI, Yakubets is also allegedly the leader of the Bugat/Cridex/Dridex malware conspiracy which “allegedly conspired to capture online banking credentials, and to use these captured credentials to steal money from the victims’ bank accounts”.Yakubets was indicted in the Western District of Pennsylvania, on November 13, 2019, and was charged with Conspiracy, Conspiracy to Commit Fraud, Wire Fraud, Bank Fraud, and Intentional Damage to a Computer.Expert Advice to Deal with Ransomware Attacks Experts believe that all organizations should be always prepared for such attacks and have a response plan ready.“It is no longer a question of whether you will be under attack or not but when, earlier we had seen hospitals being the prime target of such attacks but now it has spread across other sectors,” Sarkar told India Today.He advises organizations to develop “protection mechanism, detection capability and a response capability” to deal with such crisis.“There is behavior analytics systems which detects lateral behavior in the system, there is also newer technologies dedicated to ransomware related capabilities, some companies are also looking into dark web harvesting to look for threats buts it’s important that every organization must develop a capability to respond and this preparation must be done well in advance,” Sarkar added.
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