SamSam Ransomware Campaigns Highly Active in 2018 and Heavily Targets Organizations

SamSam ransomware campaigns continue to launch attacks against various organizations sectors including Government, Healthcare and Industrial control sectors.

Unlike other Ransomware, SamSam trying to exploiting the critical vulnerabilities in the target organization network instead of using wide spreading Spam approach to compromise the target that used by other ransomware families.

The SamSam ransomware group behind the Atlanta Police Department attack that demands the ransom of US$6,800 to unlock every computer.

SamSam Ransomware Campaigns Targets U.S.

Symantec researchers found the attackers behind the SamSam ransomware campaigns targeted 67 different organizations in 2018, among then healthcare industries, is the most affected sector.

The attackers may believe that healthcare organizations are easier to infect. Or they may believe that these organizations are more likely to pay the ransom. reads Symantec blog post.

Among the 67 infected organizations in 2018, 56 of them located in the U.S. and other small attacks on organizations in Portugal, France, Australia, Ireland, and Israel.

The SamSam group continues to target organization’s network, the attackers spend a lot of time in scanning and mapping the companies network before decrypting the computers of target organizations.

The SamSam group makes extensive use of “living off the land” tactics: the use of operating system features or legitimate network administration tools to compromise victims’ networks.

Threat actors use a number of obfuscation and anti-analysis techniques to evade the detection, here you can see how the SamSam Ransomware Works in Compromised Network.

“SamSam continues to pose a grave threat to organizations in the U.S. The group is skilled and resourceful, capable of using tactics and tools more commonly seen in espionage attacks. A successful SamSam attack will likely be highly disruptive to any affected organizations.”

Taking regular backup is the best practice to defend against the ransomware and scanning your emails for malicious links, content, and attachment can reduce the risks of getting infected.

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