Phishing remains a top initial access vector for ransomware actors, according to researchers at Cisco Talos. The threat actors often use phishing to steal legitimate credentials so they can use employee accounts without raising suspicion.
“Talos’ studies indicate that the most prolific ransomware actors prioritize gaining initial access to targeted networks, with valid accounts being the most common mechanism,” the researchers write. “Phishing for credentials often precedes these attacks, a trend observed across all incident response engagements, consistent with our 2023 Year in Review report. Over the past year, many groups have increasingly exploited known and zero-day vulnerabilities in public-facing applications, making this a prevalent initial access vector.”
Ransomware actors conduct open-source research to tailor their social engineering attacks. The criminals are also getting better at bypassing multifactor authentication.
“In the first phase of a ransomware attack, adversaries work to gain initial access to the target network, using a combination of social engineering, network scanning, and open-source research to learn about their victims, identify possible access vectors, and customize their initial access attempts,” The researchers write.
“Adversaries may send emails containing malicious attachments or URL links that will execute malicious code on the target system, deploying the actors' tools and malware, and exploiting multi-factor authentication (MFA). There are many ways adversaries hope to bypass MFA, whether because of poor implementation or because they already have valid account credentials. Most notably, we have seen an increasing number of ransomware affiliates attempting to exploit vulnerabilities or misconfigurations in internet-facing systems, such as in legacy or unpatched software. ”
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