Charl van der Walt on Cyber Extortion
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 11 July 2023
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What are the latest trends in the ransomware-as-a-service ecosystem? Since at least May 27, the CL0P ransomware gang has been exploiting a previously unknown vulnerability to exfiltrate data from financial services organizations, energy corporations, government agencies, and even universities. The group appears to be changing tactics—while it was previously known for its use of the “double extortion” tactic of stealing and encrypting victim data, it seems to now be relying mostly on data exfiltration instead.
To discuss the latest changes in the ransomware ecosystem, Eugenia Lostri, Lawfare’s Fellow in Technology Policy and Law, sat down with Charl van der Walt, Head of Security Research at Orange Cyberdefense. Charl is one of the authors of a report analyzing recent cyber extortion activity. They talked about the ransomware-as-a-service ecosystem, the impact the Russian invasion of Ukraine had on ransomware activity in the past year, and what law enforcement is doing to disrupt cybercriminal networks.
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Transcript
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| 0:29.0 | The criminal is a criminal. |
| 0:33.0 | Because you have to remember that this crime is about stealing something |
| 0:37.0 | that's of value to the victim. |
| 0:39.0 | The criminal needs to move beyond just understanding computers. |
| 0:43.0 | They need to also understand the business model, the data, |
| 0:47.0 | the value of the victim. |
| 0:50.0 | To do that, they need to be able to comprehend the language. |
| 0:53.0 | And so we think that to some extent, the shape of the victims |
| 0:58.0 | is determined by cultural factors like language, |
| 1:02.0 | as well as just how many possible victims they are |
| 1:08.0 | and are given industry and given space. |
| 1:11.0 | I am Ojania Dothi, LawFair's fellow in Technology Policy and Law. |
| 1:16.0 | And this is the LawFair podcast July 11, 2023. |
| 1:21.0 | Since at least May 27, the Club Ranzelmorgang has been |
| 1:26.0 | exploiting a previously unknown vulnerability to ex-filterate data |
| 1:30.0 | from financial services organizations, energy corporations, |
... |
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