LockBit attacks Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) University

Incident Date:

June 14, 2023

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Overview

Title

LockBit attacks Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) University

Victim

Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) University

Attacker

Lockbit

Location

Ontario, Canada

, Canada

First Reported

June 14, 2023

LockBit Ransomware Gang Targets Northern Ontario School of Medicine University

The LockBit ransomware gang has attacked the Northern Ontario School of Medicine University. The Northern Ontario School of Medicine University is a public medical university headquartered in Ontario, Canada. LockBit posted the Northern Ontario School of Medicine University to its data leak site on June 3rd, threatening to publish stolen data on June 19th if Northern Ontario School of Medicine University fails to pay the ransom.

LockBit has been active since 2019 and is enabled with security tool evasion capabilities and an extremely fast encryption speed. LockBit is noted for using a triple extortion model where the victim may also be asked to purchase their sensitive information in addition to paying the ransom demand for decrypting systems.

Evolution of LockBit

The group continues to improve its attack platform and introduced LockBit in June of 2022, which bore some similarities to the BlackMatter ransomware. The latest version incorporates advanced anti-analysis features and is a threat to both Windows and Linux systems.

LockBit employs a Base64-encoded hash and an RSA public key in its configuration and hashes it with MD5. LockBit also created its own bug bounty program. LockBit is a very well-run affiliate program and has a great reputation amongst the affiliate (attacker) community for the maturity of the platform as well as for offering high payouts of as much as 75% of the attack proceeds.

Extortion Techniques

LockBit is known to employ multiple extortion techniques, including data exfiltration, to compel payment.

Recent Ransomware Attacks

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