Russian Cyber Crime Group Issues A Warning

Ukraine has been assaulted denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and other cyber intrusions in advance of the Russian invasion and these are continuing.  In response, the Ukrainian government has called for volunteers from country’s hacker underground to help protect critical infrastructure and set up surveillance on Russian troops movements. 

Now, a Russian cyber crime group Conti, known for using ransomware to extort millions of dollars from US and European companies, has vowed to attack enemies of Russia if they respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In a blog, the Conti group said it was announcing its “full support” for the government of President Vladimir Putin. On Thursday 24th February, the Russian military invaded neighbouring Ukraine from the north, east and south, in the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two “If anybody will decide to organise a cyber attack or any war activities against Russia, we are going to use our all possible resources to strike back at the critical infrastructures of an enemy,” the Conti blog post read. “As a response to Western war-mongering and American threats to use cyber warfare against the citizens of Russian Federation, the Conti Team is officially announcing that we will use our full capacity to deliver retaliatory measures in case the Western warmongers attempt to target critical infrastructure in Russia or any Russian-speaking region of the world. We do not ally with any government and we condemn the ongoing war. 

“However, since the West is known to wage its wars primarily by targeting civilians, we will use our resources in order to strike back if the well being and safety of peaceful citizens will be at stake due to American cyber aggression,” says the blog.

First detected in 2019, Conti has since been blamed for ransomware attacks against numerous US and European companies. In those incidents, Conti hackers invaded networks and encrypted data, disrupting operations and demanding payment to restore access. Among the victims were the state government  Louisiana and a New Mexico hospital, according to analysis by Emsisoft.

Conti Ransomware Group

Conti was first detected in December 2019 following  a number of apparently  of isolated  incidents over the next few months, with activity increasing significantly in mid-June 2020. Conti typically function using human-operated ransomware which typically features command line capabilities that enable operators monitoring the target environment to directly control, spread and execute the ransomware. 

This functionality gives attackers the unique ability to selectively choose to encrypt local files, network shares and/or specific IP addresses. Prior to encryption, Conti prepares the compromised system by deleting Windows Volume Shadow Copies and disabling 146 Windows services related to backup, security, database and email solutions. 

While Conti is considered a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) model business model, there is variation in its structure that differentiates it from a typical affiliate model. It is thought likely that Conti developers pay those affiliates who actually  deploy the ransomware a wage rather than a percentage of the criminal proceeds a from a successful attack. 

ContiNews     Reuters:     Reuters:     CISA:    :     HSToday:     Y Combinator:    Jerusalem Post:   EMISoft: 

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