CyberWire Daily - CISA Alert AA23-061A – #StopRansomware: Royal ransomware.

Episode Date: March 3, 2023

CISA and FBI are releasing this joint advisory to disseminate known Royal ransomware IOCs and TTPs identified through recent FBI threat response activities. AA23-061A Alert, Technical Details, and Mitigations AA23-061A STIX XML Royal Rumble: Analysis of Royal Ransomware (cybereason.com) DEV-0569 finds new ways to deliver Royal ransomware, various payloads - Microsoft Security Blog 2023-01: ACSC Ransomware Profile - Royal | Cyber.gov.au See Stopransomware.gov, a whole-of-government approach, for ransomware resources and alerts. No-cost cyber hygiene services: Cyber Hygiene Services and Ransomware Readiness Assessment. See CISA Insights Mitigations and Hardening Guidance for MSPs and Small- and Mid-sized Businesses for guidance on hardening MSP and customer infrastructure. U.S. DIB sector organizations may consider signing up for the NSA Cybersecurity Collaboration Center’s DIB Cybersecurity Service Offerings, including Protective Domain Name System services, vulnerability scanning, and threat intelligence collaboration for eligible organizations. For more information on how to enroll in these services, email [e-mail]  To report incidents and anomalous activity or to request incident response resources or technical assistance related to these threats, contact CISA at [e-mail], or call [phone], or report incidents to your local FBI field office. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to the Cyber Wire Network, powered by N2K. 1 alpha original release date march 2nd 2023 sisa and fbi are releasing this joint advisory to disseminate known royal ransomware iocs and ttps identified through recent fbi threat response activities since approximately september 2022 cyber criminals have compromised u.s and international organizations with a royal ransomware variant. FBI and CISA believe this variant, which uses its own custom-made file encryption program, evolved from earlier iterations that used Xeon as a loader. After gaining access to victims' networks, royal actors disable antivirus software and exfiltrate large amounts of data before ultimately deploying the ransomware and encrypting the systems.

Royal actors have made ransom demands ranging from approximately $1 million to $11 million in Bitcoin. In observed incidents, royal actors do not include ransom amounts and payment instructions as a part of the initial ransom note. Instead, the note, which appears after encryption, requires victims to directly interact with the threat actor via a.onion URL. Royal actors have targeted numerous critical infrastructure sectors,

including manufacturing, communications, healthcare, and public healthcare, and education. FBI and CISA encourage organizations to implement the recommendations in the mitigation section of this alert to reduce the likelihood and impact of ransomware incidents. The alert documentation linked in the show notes includes additional technical details, IOCs, malicious actor TTPs, recovery guidance, mitigations, and response recommendations. Recorded future, coveware, digital asset redemption, Q6, and RedSense contributed to this advisory.

To report incidents and anomalous activity or to request incident response resources or technical assistance, contact CISA at report at cisa.gov, call 888-282-0870, or report incidents to your local FBI field office. report incidents to your local FBI field office. This report was written by CISA, the United States Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and edited and adapted for audio by the Cyberwire as a public service. Please visit www.cisa.gov to read the full report, which may include additional details, links, and illustrations. A link to this report can be found in the show notes. A link to this report can be found in the show notes. This has been a CISA Cybersecurity Alert.