silversurfer
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- Aug 17, 2014
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The financially motivated threat actor known as UNC3944 is pivoting to ransomware deployment as part of an expansion to its monetization strategies, Mandiant has revealed.
"UNC3944 has demonstrated a stronger focus on stealing large amounts of sensitive data for extortion purposes and they appear to understand Western business practices, possibly due to the geographical composition of the group," the threat intelligence firm said.
"The threat actors operate with an extremely high operational tempo, accessing critical systems and exfiltrating large volumes of data over a course of a few days," Mandiant pointed out.
"When deploying ransomware, the threat actors appear to specifically target business-critical virtual machines and other systems, likely in an attempt to maximize impact to the victim."