The Russian-speaking group behind the
infamous RTM banking trojan is now packing a trifecta of threats as it turns up the heat – part of a massive new money-grab campaign. Beyond the banking malware it is known for, attackers have enlisted a recently-discovered ransomware family called Quoter as part of a new double-extortion cyberattack strategy.
The triple-threat attack, which started its “active phase” in December 2020 and is ongoing, has hit at least ten Russian organizations in the transport and finance sectors via malicious email messages, according to Kaspersky in a report released this week.
Should the money-stealing tactics of RTM group’s hallmark Trojan-Banker.Win32.RTM payload fail, the attackers have a backup plan. Plan “B” is deploy a never-before-seen ransomware family, which researchers are calling Quoter. The name Quoter is derived from the fact the ransomware code embeds quotes from popular movies. Next, if attackers hit a brick wall, they try to extort money from victims, threatening that they will release breached data stolen from the targets if they don’t pay up.
“What’s remarkable about this story is the evolution of the group behind the RTM ransomware,” according to a
translation of Kaspersky’s research report. They said the group has gone far beyond its tried-and-true methods of “making money” – via extortion and doxing. They added, it’s unusual for Russian-speaking cybercriminals to attack organizations in Russia, although, the ransomware is also used in targeted attacks outside the country.
threatpost.com
