Security experts have uncovered shocking evidence that the notorious Clop ransomware group has been spending extensive amounts of time testing zero-day vulnerabilities on the popular MOVEit platform since 2021, according to recent reports. This study has raised a lot of concerns about cybersecurity systems' vulnerability. For this reason, affected organizations and security agencies have taken urgent action to prevent these vulnerabilities. In light of this discovery, it only highlights the fact that ransomware attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated. The need for robust defense measures to mitigate various types of cyber threats is critical.
There is now close work collaboration between authorities and the parties affected by the breach to investigate this incident and develop appropriate countermeasures.
A recent Clop data theft attack aimed at weak MOVEit Transfer instances was examined, and it was discovered that the technique employed by the group to deploy the recently revealed LemurLoot web shell can be matched with the technique used by the gang to target weak MOVEit Transfer instances. Using logs from some affected clients' networks, they determined which clients were affected.
As a result of a joint advisory issued by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) regarding the active exploitation of a recently discovered critical vulnerability in Progress Software's MOVEit Transfer application, ransomware is now being dropped on the internet.
Kroll researchers performed a forensic review of the exploit carried out by the Clop cybergang in July 2021. They determined that they may have experimented with the now-patched file transfer vulnerability (CVE-2023-34362) that month.
BBC, British Airways, Boots, a UK drugstore chain and the Halifax provincial government are some of the organizations that have reported that their data was exfiltrated by the group at the end of last month as well as payroll company Zellis. There was a breach of employee data by three organizations, Vodafone, BBC, and Boots, which used Zellis' services to store employee data.
The Russian-backed Clop organization, also known as Lace Tempest, TA505, and FIN11, has claimed responsibility for attacks that exploited Fortra’s GoAnywhere Managed File Transfer solution by exploiting a zero-day vulnerability. Over 130 organizations have been targeted and over one million patients' data has been compromised as a result.
It has been reported that the MOVEit Transfer SQL injection vulnerability exploit on Wednesday was similar to a 2020-21 campaign in which the group installed a DEWMODE web shell on Accellion FTA servers in a joint advisory issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
It has also been discovered that threat actors were testing methods for gathering and extracting sensitive data from compromised MOVEit Transfer servers as far back as April of 2022. These methods were probably using automated tools and these methods may have been used to gain access to servers.
It is possible that actors tested access to organizations using automated means and pulled back information from MOVEit Transfer servers. This was in the weeks leading up to last month's attacks. This is in addition to the 2022 activity. They also did this to determine which organizations they were accessing using information obtained from the MOVEit Transfer servers.
During the malicious activity, it appeared that specific MOVEit Transfer users' Organization IDs ("Org IDs") were being exfiltrated, which in turn would have allowed Clop to determine which organizations to access.
It has been reported on Clop's website that it has claimed responsibility for the MOVEit attacks and that victims are invited to contact it until July 14 if they do not wish that their names be posted on the site. Because a ransom deal would not guarantee that the stolen data would remain secure, the company has offered examples of data that has been exfiltrated and data that has been publicly published as part of an unresolvable ransom deal.
In a LinkedIn post, Charles Carmakal, CEO of Mandiant Consulting, expressed surprise at the number of victims MOVEit has provided. Carmakal characterized MOVEit as "overwhelming.".