So what is HyperSale Cloud?
In a nutshell, a ransomware virus essentially holds your files hostage until you pay a specific amount, usually in cryptocurrency.
There’s no guarantee your files will be unlocked after you make the payment. Ransomware gangs take advantage of less tech-savvy business owners and companies. All it takes is a single malicious file download to spread the infection throughout a hard drive. Hopefully, you have a backup.
It has even got to the point of being a geopolitical risk for governments. In the first half of 2022, Costa Rica, Peru, Mexico, Ecuador, Brazil, and Argentina were all targeted by
Russian-speaking cybercrime groups like Conti, ALPHV, LockBit 2.0, and BlackByte. All countries had publicly condemned Russia at the UN for invading Ukraine, and some voted to suspend the country from the UN Human Rights Council. Further tying these ransomware attacks to Russia, there seems to be an uptick in initial access broker (IAB) services on major Russian-language dark web and special access forums like XSS and Exploited.
Most of those organizations targeted in this first wave of Latin American attacks appear to have been hit after threat actors got hold of compromised credential pairs and session cookies.
For months, Western leaders have warned about the risk of military conflict in Ukraine spilling over into the rest of the world. Their fears may not yet have been directly realized, but several governments in Latin America have indeed begun to feel the impact.
In the first half of 2021, the total ransomware payments reported by banks were $590 million. At this rate, it will only increase by the end of 2022.
If this is the new geopolitical reality, government CISOs everywhere should take note.
