Digital safety professionals who’ve adopted the group are torn between dismissing them as attention-seeking pranksters or ruthless operators within the mildew of Russian ransomware gangs.
It might be a little bit of each, stated Chester Wisniewski of British cybersecurity agency Sophos.
He stated that the group didn’t seem to make use of malicious software program to encrypt their victims’ networks, a trademark of digital extortionists.
They as a substitute manually lay waste to their targets’ networks, usually after making weird ultimatums just like the time they demanded that Nvidia make the software program for its drivers open supply – and take away the bounds on gear usually used to mine bitcoin.
“With these guys, they are not after a lot of something,” stated Wisniewski. “The few calls for they’ve made have been outrageous and unrealistic.” A young person dwelling close to Oxford, England, is suspected of being behind a number of the extra notable assaults, Bloomberg Information reported on Wednesday.
Reached by cellphone, the daddy of {the teenager} – who can’t be named as a result of they’re a minor – declined to remark.
Reuters confirmed that cybersecurity researchers investigating Lapsus$ imagine {the teenager} was concerned within the group, in line with three folks conversant in the matter.
In a weblog publish on Thursday, Unit 42, a analysis staff at Palo Alto Networks, described Lapsus$ as an “assault group” motivated by notoriety somewhat than monetary achieve.
Not like different teams, they don’t depend on the deployment of ransomware – malicious software program to encrypt their victims’networks, a trademark of digital extortionists – and as a substitute manually lay waste to their targets’ networks.
Together with Unit 221b, a separate safety consultancy, the Palo Alto researchers stated they’d recognized the “main actor” behind Lapsus$ in 2021 and had been “helping legislation enforcement of their efforts to prosecute this group”.
“{The teenager} we recognized as being in charge of Lapsus$ is especially instrumental,” Unit 221b’s chief analysis officer Allison Nixon instructed Reuters.
“Not only for their management position, however for the very important intel they need to possess on different members”.