Enlarge / This isn’t what a hacker seems like. Besides on hacker cosplay night time. (credit score: Getty Pictures | Invoice Hinton)
Microsoft has been monitoring a menace group that stands out for its potential to money in from knowledge theft hacks that use broad social engineering assaults, painstaking analysis, and occasional bodily threats.
Not like many ransomware assault teams, Octo Tempest, as Microsoft has named the group, doesn’t encrypt knowledge after gaining unlawful entry to it. As a substitute, the menace actor threatens to share the information publicly except the sufferer pays a hefty ransom. To defeat targets’ defenses, the group resorts to a bunch of methods, which, in addition to social engineering, contains SIM swaps, SMS phishing, and stay voice calls. Over time, the group has grown more and more aggressive, at occasions resorting to threats of bodily violence if a goal doesn’t adjust to directions to show over credentials.
“In uncommon situations, Octo Tempest resorts to fear-mongering techniques, concentrating on particular people by means of cellphone calls and texts,” Microsoft researchers wrote in a publish on Wednesday. “These actors use private data, comparable to dwelling addresses and household names, together with bodily threats to coerce victims into sharing credentials for company entry.”
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