WASHINGTON (TND) — Cybersecurity experts are concerned that ransomware attacks may be on the rise, due in part to a group called Scattered Spider.
“They're a loose organization. They don't have a central core, but they have a central mission, and that's to engage in hacking exercises,” said Scott White, director of the George Washington University Cybersecurity Program. ”
White says Scattered Spiders are not a new group of criminals. In fact, it has existed for quite some time.
They committed star fraud. They went by the name Scatter Swine. UNC3944,” White said.
Different aliases, but same group. So who are they? White said they are a team of hackers, each with different areas of expertise and a blend of skills.
“They come together because they have a skill set, they start empathizing with that particular group, they start communicating with this group through the dark web, and they find ways to jointly share these operations,” White said. said.
One of the key features of this group is something called social engineering.
“They typically target people to obtain what's called PII, or personally identifiable information,” White said.
It could be anything from an employee's name to a potential identification code that facilitates access to company information. White said that apart from Scattered Spider, another reason we're seeing more attacks is because ransomware is one of the biggest capital accumulators for cybercriminals.
People invest in this because it makes money,” White said.
Additionally, ransomware is more accessible than ever.
You can actually go on the dark web and buy ransomware,” White said.
