Considering the rapid rate at which cybersecurity threats evolve, your cybersecurity posture must keep pace, as well. This year’s cyberthreat landscape has proven that once again as countless aggressive ransomware strains attempt to thwart your operations.
An emerging ransomware strain in the cyberthreat landscape claims to have breached 30 organizations in just four months since it was launched. First discovered in February of this year, Prometheus is a spinoff of another infamous ransomware variant called Thanos, which was previously deployed against state-run organizations in the Middle East and North Africa in 2020.
Affected entities include manufacturing firms, as well as government, financial services, logistics, consulting, agriculture, healthcare services, insurance agencies, energy and legal organizations in the United States, United Kingdom and as many as a dozen additional countries Asia, Europe, the Middle East and South America.
Prometheus – like other ransomware outfits – utilizes double-extortion tactics and hosts a dark web leak site, where it names and shames new victims and makes stolen data available for purchase. Simultaneously, Prometheus attempts to come off as a professional outfit in its notifications, trying to ensure it isn’t a criminal syndicate and can be trusted.
In other words, par for the course for ransomware gangs.
Of the 30 affected organizations, only four have paid ransoms thus far. These included a Peruvian agricultural company, a Brazilian healthcare services provider, and two transportation and logistics organizations in Austria and Singapore.
This ransomware strain’s intrusion route is still unclear, but it’s expected that Prometheus purchased access to target networks or staged spear-phishing and brute-force attacks to gain initial access. Once inside, the gang terminates backup and security software-related processes on the system to lock files behind its encryption barriers.
Ransom ranges thus far have been between $6,000 and $100,000, depending on the victimized organization. The price is doubled if the victim doesn’t comply within a designated timeframe.
Ransomware isn’t going away, and a breach of your organization’s IT infrastructure could certainly bring you to your knees. Don’t let the cybercrooks win! Partner with 2W Tech to protect your organization from cybercrime. We have a comprehensive Cybersecurity Compliance Program that will help mitigate your exposure to ransomware. Contact us today for more information.
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