Book Image

Incident Response Techniques for Ransomware Attacks

Book Image

Incident Response Techniques for Ransomware Attacks

Overview of this book

Ransomware attacks have become the strongest and most persistent threat for many companies around the globe. Building an effective incident response plan to prevent a ransomware attack is crucial and may help you avoid heavy losses. Incident Response Techniques for Ransomware Attacks is designed to help you do just that. This book starts by discussing the history of ransomware, showing you how the threat landscape has changed over the years, while also covering the process of incident response in detail. You’ll then learn how to collect and produce ransomware-related cyber threat intelligence and look at threat actor tactics, techniques, and procedures. Next, the book focuses on various forensic artifacts in order to reconstruct each stage of a human-operated ransomware attack life cycle. In the concluding chapters, you’ll get to grips with various kill chains and discover a new one: the Unified Ransomware Kill Chain. By the end of this ransomware book, you’ll be equipped with the skills you need to build an incident response strategy for all ransomware attacks.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
1
Section 1: Getting Started with a Modern Ransomware Attack
5
Section 2: Know Your Adversary: How Ransomware Gangs Operate
9
Section 3: Practical Incident Response

Investigating the use of custom data exfiltration tools

In 2021, some representatives of popular ransomware-as-a-service programs introduced custom data exfiltration tools as an addition to the ransomware itself. One notable example is StealBit, an information stealer distributed as part of LockBit 2.0 RaaS. Other examples include Sidoh, which was used by Ryuk ransomware affiliates, and ExMatter, which was used by BlackMatter ransomware affiliates.

Figure 10.15 – StealBit information from LockBit 2.0 DLS

In some cases, it's really easy to spot during incident investigations – ransomware affiliates may use an executable named StealBit.exe. So, you can extract information from various sources of evidence of execution you are already well aware of, and search for files with similar names. If the threat actors prefer to use masquerading techniques, just focus on staging folders used by the attackers, or use timelines to find pivot points.

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