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FBI Warns of Alarming New Ransomware Trend

Multiple variants of ransomware—deployed within 48 hours of each other—enable new data destruction tactics.

Getty Images Ransomware
Getty Images

It’s October, otherwise known as Cybersecurity Awareness Month, which perhaps is why the FBI released a private industry notification last week (September 27, 2023) warning organizations of a new kind of ransomware attack.

The notice highlights an emerging trend by bad actors in which multiple variants of ransomware are used on the same victim and conducted within close proximity to one another—the majority of which occurred within 48 hours of each other—and enabled new data destruction tactics.

First observed in July 2023, the FBI noted that during these attacks, cyber threat actors deployed two different ransomware variants in various combinations against victim companies from the following variants: AvosLocker, Diamond, Hive, Karakurt, LockBit, Quantum, and Royal. “This use of dual ransomware variants resulted in a combination of data encryption, exfiltration, and financial losses from ransom payments. Second ransomware attacks against an already compromised system could significantly harm victim entities,” the agency said.

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