Malware Goes Beyond Ancient Jigsaw
November 04, 2021

Grayson Milbourne
Carbonite + Webroot

Ransomware is no stranger to corporate networks, as it poses huge risks and even larger recovery efforts that are quite costly. Successful ransomware attacks can result in locked systems, stolen identity, data held hostage — all of which can wreak chaos and disaster to the targeted organizations.

When ransomware reaches its target, it's practically game over. The malware encrypts files and spreads to the entire system to maximize damage, which forces many companies to lock down networks to stop the propagation.

Ancient Malware - Jigsaw

While encryption is used everywhere, it's not to be confused with hashing or obfuscating files because even though they are combined, they are not the same.

■ Hashing and obfuscating techniques are helpful for evading detection tools

■ Ransomware takes your data hostage because of encryption

Each uses different types of cryptography, from modern symmetric ciphers to asymmetric ciphers with the idea being to prevent any reverse operation without a key.

Many ransomware strains display a "special note" after the encryption mandating that the only way to decrypt the files is to send bitcoins to the criminals' wallet. However, as we know, some forms of ransomware are decryptable, and the ransom does not need to be paid or the burden should not fall solely on cyber insurance. For example, an ancient malware, Jigsaw, first coined in 2016, contains the key used to encrypt files in the source code; we recently saw this type of attack surface again this year within Morse code, proving that even as malware continues to evolve, criminals will use whatever works, meaning businesses need to be aware of not just evolving threats but also old ways of attack.

Doubling Down - Ransomware Evolves

Recent attacks don't just encrypt data — the malware is also able to exfiltrate critical information before the encryption. As ransomware protection improves, especially with removal and recovery strategies, hackers are turning to using stolen data as new leverage so they can still threaten the victims if they do not pay the ransom — enter double ransomware threats.

We've recently observed threat actors adopting a ‘double extortion' model in which they encrypt the target's data and not only demand a ransom for its return but also leverage additional payment incentives to add pressure on the victim to pay the ransom. Some threat actors will even use a more targeted approach and threaten to publicly release and/or auction the data unless the victim pays up, communicating the risks of not meeting compliance within the global GDPR and the hundreds of data privacy policies and laws.Two such examples are Conti and REvil, both on our 2021 Nastiest Malware list, who have been known to publish leaked data onto dark web sites if ransoms are not paid.

To Know Your Back Up Plan is to Really Know Your Data

A critical way to improve cyber resilience — your ability to withstand attacks and ensure continued access to your data — is to have a solid backup strategy. However, efforts can become futile if organizations forget to clearly list and identify their requirements, then test their procedures regularly to prevent massive failures at the worst moments.

Data protection is all about risk mitigation and you need to ask yourself a few key questions to have the most comprehensive plan:

1. How does your data tie into your business operations or your revenue, and does the data need to be archived?

2. Does the data live in a legacy system where it might be subject to regulatory frameworks which could expose your business to penalties if data is breached?

3. What is the data your business cannot function without?

4. How long might it take to restore that data?

5. What might it cost to fully restore?

The End is Not Near

Cybercriminals will continue to refine their approaches and experiment with different business models as evolutionary ransomware attacks place enormous stress on the availability of services and data streams.

While those adversaries will, without doubt, continue to look for additional ways to put pressure on victims to maximize their chances of getting paid, you can be empowered to preserve what is most valuable to you today by deploying strong cyber resiliency practices, both now and in the future.

Grayson Milbourne is Security Intelligence Director for Carbonite + Webroot
Share this

Industry News

March 06, 2025

Parasoft(link is external) is showcasing its latest product innovations at embedded world Exhibition, booth 4-318(link is external), including new GenAI integration with Microsoft Visual Studio Code (VS Code) to optimize test automation of safety-critical applications while reducing development time, cost, and risk.

March 06, 2025

JFrog announced general availability of its integration with NVIDIA NIM microservices, part of the NVIDIA AI Enterprise software platform.

March 06, 2025

CloudCasa by Catalogic announce an integration with SUSE® Rancher Prime via a new Rancher Prime Extension.

March 05, 2025

MacStadium(link is external) announced the extended availability of Orka(link is external) Cluster 3.2, establishing the market’s first enterprise-grade macOS virtualization solution available across multiple deployment options.

March 05, 2025

JFrog is partnering with Hugging Face, host of a repository of public machine learning (ML) models — the Hugging Face Hub — designed to achieve more robust security scans and analysis forevery ML model in their library.

March 05, 2025

Copado launched DevOps Automation Agent on Salesforce's AgentExchange, a global ecosystem marketplace powered by AppExchange for leading partners building new third-party agents and agent actions for Agentforce.

March 05, 2025

Harness completed its merger with Traceable, effective March 4, 2025.

March 04, 2025

JFrog released JFrog ML, an MLOps solution as part of the JFrog Platform designed to enable development teams, data scientists and ML engineers to quickly develop and deploy enterprise-ready AI applications at scale.

March 04, 2025

Progress announced the addition of Web Application Firewall (WAF) functionality to Progress® MOVEit® Cloud managed file transfer (MFT) solution.

March 04, 2025

Couchbase launched Couchbase Edge Server, an offline-first, lightweight database server and sync solution designed to provide low latency data access, consolidation, storage and processing for applications in resource-constrained edge environments.

March 04, 2025

Sonatype announced end-to-end AI Software Composition Analysis (AI SCA) capabilities that enable enterprises to harness the full potential of AI.

March 03, 2025

Aviatrix® announced the launch of the Aviatrix Kubernetes Firewall.

March 03, 2025

ScaleOps announced the general availability of their Pod Placement feature, a solution that helps companies manage Kubernetes infrastructure.

March 03, 2025

Cloudsmith raised a $23 million Series B funding round led by TCV, with participation from Insight Partners and existing investors.

February 27, 2025

IBM has completed its acquisition of HashiCorp, whose products automate and secure the infrastructure that underpins hybrid cloud applications and generative AI.