Breaking News

US govt agencies released a joint alert on the Lockbit 3.0 ransomware

The US government released a joint advisory that provides technical details about the operation of the Lockbit 3.0 ransomware gang.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Multi-State Information Sharing & Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) released a joint advisory that provides indicators of compromise (IOCs) and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) associated with the notorious LockBit 3.0 ransomware.

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), CISA, and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) has released a joint cybersecurity advisory (CSA), #StopRansomware: LockBit 3.0. This joint advisory details known indicators of compromise (IOCs) and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) that FBI investigations correlated with LockBit 3.0 ransomware as recently as March 2023.” reads the advisory published by US agencies. “LockBit 3.0 functions as an affiliate-based ransomware variant and is a continuation of LockBit 2.0 and LockBit.”

The Lockbit gang has been active since at least 2019 and today it is one of the most active ransomware groups offering a Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) model.

The LockBit 3.0 ransomware (aka LockBit Black) was launched in June 2022 and is a continuation of previous versions of the ransomware, LockBit 2.0 (released in mid-2021), and LockBit.

The LockBit 3.0 ransomware is a modular malware that is more evasive than its previous versions, its shared similarities with Blackmatter and Blackcat ransomware.

“LockBit 3.0 is configured upon compilation with many different options that determine the behavior of the ransomware. Upon the actual execution of the ransomware within a victim environment, various arguments can be supplied to further modify the behavior of the ransomware. For example, LockBit 3.0 accepts additional arguments for specific operations in lateral movement and rebooting into Safe Mode (see LockBit Command Line parameters under Indicators of Compromise).” reads the joint alert

“If a LockBit affiliate does not have access to passwordless LockBit 3.0 ransomware, then a password argument is mandatory during the execution of the ransomware.”

By protecting the code with encryption, the latest LockBit version can avoid the detection of signature-based anti-malware solutions.

The ransomware doesn’t infect machines whose language settings are included in an exclusion list, which includes Romanian (Moldova), Arabic (Syria), and Tatar (Russia).

Initial attack vectors used by affiliates deploying LockBit 3.0 ransomware include remote desktop protocol (RDP) exploitation, drive-by compromise, phishing campaigns, abuse of valid accounts, and exploitation of public-facing applications.

Upon execution in the target network, the ransomware attempts to escalate privileges if they are not sufficient, terminate processes and services, delete logs, files in the recycle bin folder, and shadow copies residing on disk.

LockBit 3.0 attempts to perform lateral movement by using a preconfigured list of credentials hardcoded at compilation time or a compromised local account with elevated privileges.

Operators can also compile LockBit 3.0 for spreading via Group Policy Objects and PsExec using the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol.

  • The RaaS’s affiliates use the following tools to exfiltrate data before encrypting it:
  • Stealbit, a custom exfiltration tool used previously with LockBit 2.0;
  • publicly available file-sharing services, such as MEGA.

The affiliates have been observed using various freeware and open-source tools furing their attacks.

“These tools are used for a range of activities such as network reconnaissance, remote access and tunneling, credential dumping, and file exfiltration. Use of PowerShell and Batch scripts
are observed across most intrusions, which focus on system discovery, reconnaissance, password/credential hunting, and privilege escalation. Artifacts of professional penetration-testing tools such as Metasploit and Cobalt Strike have also been observed.” continues the report.

The alert states that LockBit 3.0 is capable of bypassing User Account Control (UAC) to execute code with elevated privileges via elevated Component Object Model (COM) Interface. It also supports a Safe Mode feature to bypass endpoint antivirus and detection.

The alert also provides mitigations and security controls to prevent and reduce the impact of the threat.

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, RaaS)

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.

Recent Posts

Earth Krahang APT breached tens of government organizations worldwide

Trend Micro uncovered a sophisticated campaign conducted by Earth Krahang APT group that breached 70…

31 mins ago

PoC exploit for critical RCE flaw in Fortra FileCatalyst transfer tool released

Fortra addressed a critical remote code execution vulnerability impacting its FileCatalyst file transfer product. Fortra has released…

12 hours ago

Fujitsu suffered a malware attack and probably a data breach

Technology giant Fujitsu announced it had suffered a cyberattack that may have resulted in the…

14 hours ago

Remove WordPress miniOrange plugins, a critical flaw can allow site takeover

A critical vulnerability in WordPress miniOrange's Malware Scanner and Web Application Firewall plugins can allow…

20 hours ago

The Aviation and Aerospace Sectors Face Skyrocketing Cyber Threats

Resecurity reported about the increasing wave of cyber incidents targeting the aerospace and aviation sectors.…

23 hours ago

Email accounts of the International Monetary Fund compromised

Threat actors compromised at least 11 International Monetary Fund (IMF) email accounts earlier this year,…

1 day ago

This website uses cookies.