LockBit Gang Utilizing Musk’s Web Providers, Laundering BitCoin in Hong Kong, China

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A safety strategist who spent months undercover on the darkweb revealed a report on Monday that gives perception into one of many world’s most infamous ransomware teams, claiming its members are utilizing web providers owned by billionaire Elon Musk and laundering cash via Hong Kong and China.

LockBit TattoosLockBit’s PR stunts on-line have included encouraging followers on the darkish net to get tattoos of the syndicate’s brand. (Picture: courtesy of Jon DiMaggio, Analyst1)Jon DiMaggio, Chief Safety Strategist at menace intelligence platform Analyst1 launched his findings about LockBit in a report referred to as Ransomware Diaries: Quantity 1. He stated he used faux personas to speak with members of the cybercriminal syndicate and study extra about their operations.

“LockBit is, proper now, by far the worst amongst all of the ransomware gangs,” DiMaggio advised OCCRP. “They’ve by far the very best quantity of assaults, and that’s a reality. They’re operating the ransomware scene.”

He defined that till now, comparatively little effort has been put into profiling the actors behind such cybercriminal syndicates. “I imagine that is the primary publicly-available, in-depth profile of any ransomware group,” he stated.

“We have to get extra folks doing this, amassing knowledge from the darkish net, from these personal channels, from the press releases on their web sites. All this low-hanging fruit, it helps us higher perceive the adversary,” the professional stated.

In accordance with his report, LockBit’s management has been interacting with the broader cybercriminal group by way of darkish net boards and personal channels beneath the pseudonym LockBitSupp. This persona claims the group accesses its back-end infrastructure by way of Starlink, a U.S. satellite tv for pc web service owned by Musk’s SpaceX, and that they primarily depend on Bitcoin exchanges positioned in Hong Kong and China to launder proceeds from their ransomware campaigns.

The report additionally reveals LockBit’s shut affiliation with a number of different high-profile ransomware gangs. Although these relationships stay largely adversarial, because of the more and more aggressive nature of the worldwide marketplace for cybercriminal providers, LockBit’s management seem to take care of a direct line of communication with a number of different legal syndicates – together with BlackCat, Hive, REvil, and DarkSide/BlackMatter, extensively believed to have been answerable for the 2021 U.S. Colonial Pipeline cyberattack.

“Most of those relationships – not all, however most – began off nicely sufficient. However criminals haven’t any ethics, so it’s normally only a matter of time earlier than they step on one another’s toes and begin pissing one another off,” DiMaggio stated. “However on the finish of the day, you’ve nonetheless bought lots of people who all know one another, who all run in the identical circles, and who stay in communication with each other.”

LockBit additionally has ties to the ransomware group Blackbasta, previously Conti, who have been behind a collection of large-scale cyber assaults that successfully paralyzed the Costa Rican authorities final 12 months. In accordance with LockBitSupp, DiMaggio says, Blackbasta are working for the Russian authorities, offering direct technical assist to the FSB.

OCCRP beforehand reported how Moscow is prone to flip to cybercriminal proxies in launching future assaults towards essential infrastructure within the West. Partly due to the sheer scale and class of Russia’s marketplace for cybercriminal providers, but additionally due to the “believable deniability” afforded by such ways.

Past this, specialists have additionally expressed alarm over the rising diversification of providers and operational fashions throughout the cybercriminal group in recent times. The competitors throughout this more and more reputation-driven legal sector is fierce, and has additionally created alternatives for completed hackers to successfully work as freelancers for a number of teams. It’s a pattern keenly mirrored by LockBit’s operations over the previous few months, throughout which the group’s management has engaged in a number of smear campaigns towards rival ransomware gangs, in addition to launching a number of PR-stunts to advertise their providers and appeal to new blood.

The latter has included a “summer season paper contest”, wherein candidates have been inspired to submit academic-style papers on totally different hacking strategies, with the winner awarded a financial prize. In accordance with DiMaggio, this speaks to LockBit’s “outside-the-box” method to elevating consciousness of their operations amongst potential shoppers, in addition to figuring out and recruiting sensible and upcoming cybercriminals, although their leaders’ showmanship has apparently attracted censure from different members of the cybercriminal group.

“On the finish of the day, this can be a very profitable individual, however who’s additionally very conceited and insecure,” DiMaggio says. “They play a superb chess sport, however there’s a rising detrimental sentiment amongst different criminals who’re uninterested in the ego and fixed chest pounding.”





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