An emerging ransomware strain appears to have breached 30 organisations since its “launch” earlier this year by attaching itself to a notorious ransomware syndicate.
In February 2021, "Prometheus" was discovered as a spin-off of another well-known ransomware variant called Thanos, which was previously deployed against state-run organisations in the Middle East and North Africa last year.
Government, financial, manufacturing, logistics, consulting, agriculture, healthcare services, insurance agencies, energy and law firms in America, Britain, and a handful of other countries in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and South America, were all hit by this new strain, according to new research published by Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 threat intelligence team.
Prometheus is similar to other ransomware gangs in that it takes advantage of double-extortion tactics and hosts a dark web leak site, where it names and shames new victims and makes stolen data available for purchase, while managing to maintain a sheen of professionalism into its criminal activities.
It runs like a professional enterprise and refers to its victims as 'customers’. It communicates with them using a customer service ticketing system that warns them when payment deadlines are approaching and, somewhat forebodingly, uses a clock to count down the hours, minutes and seconds to a payment deadline.
At the time of writing, only four of those 30 affected organisations opted to pay ransoms, including an agricultural company in Peru, a Brazilian healthcare services provider, and two transportation and logistics organisations in Austria and Singapore.
Despite Prometheus' lineage to Thanos, the gang professes to be a "group of REvil," one of the most prolific and infamous ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) cartels in recent years, which could be a canny trick to fool victims into paying the ransom by piggybacking on an established operation.
Reporting
Report all Fraud and Cybercrime to Action Fraud by calling 0300 123 2040 or online. Forward suspicious emails to report@phishing.gov.uk. Report SMS scams by forwarding the original message to 7726 (spells SPAM on the keypad).