Ransomware attacks are not new, but the group behind the casino breaches was extraordinarily skilled at social engineering and bypassing multi-factor authentication, a security expert says.
About a year ago, the US security firm Palo Alto Networks began to hear from a flurry of companies that had been hacked in ways that weren’t the norm for cybercriminals.
“They are much more sophisticated than many cybercriminal actors. They appear to be disciplined and organized in their attacks,” she said. “And that’s something we typically see more frequently with nation-state actors, versus cyber criminals.”REUTERSKnown in the security industry variously as Scattered Spider, Muddled Libra, and UNC3944, these hackers were thrust into the limelight earlier this month for— MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment.
Google-owned intelligence firm Mandiant, has logged more than 100 intrusions by it in the last two years.The FBI is investigating the MGM and Caesars breaches, and the companies did not comment on who may be behind them.But it’s not just the scale or the breadth of attacks that make this group stand out.
The hackers are extremely good at what they do and “ruthless” in their interactions with victims, said Kevin Mandia, Mandiant’s founder.The technique, called SWATing, “is something that’s utterly dreadful to live through as a victim,” he said. “I don’t even think these intrusions are about money. I think they’re about power, influence and notoriety. That makes it harder to respond to.”There’s little detail on Scattered Spider’s location or identity.
Before calling helpdesks, the hackers acquire employee information including passwords by social engineering, especially ‘SIM swapping’ — a technique where they trick a telecom company’s customer service representative to reassign a specific phone number from one device to another, analysts say.They also appear to make the effort to study how large organizations work, including their vendors and contractors, to find individuals with privileged access they can target, according to analysts.
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