Snatch attacks Spaulding Clinical

Incident Date:

December 18, 2023

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Overview

Title

Snatch attacks Spaulding Clinical

Victim

Spaulding Clinical

Attacker

Snatch

Location

West Bend, USA

Winsconsin, USA

First Reported

December 18, 2023

Snatch Ransomware Group Targets Spaulding Clinical

Snatch ransomware group took responsibility for an attack on Spaulding Clinical. No further information was disclosed on what data was compromised or on the impact of the attack. Spaulding Clinical was founded in 2007 and quickly became a recognizable name in clinical pharmacology, biostatistics, and clinical data management.

Background of Snatch Ransomware

Snatch is a RaaS first emerged way back in 2018 but did not become significantly active until 2021. Snatch can evade security tools and deletes Volume Shadow Copies to prevent rollbacks and any local Windows backups to thwart recovery. There has also been a Linux version observed.

Attack Volume and Ransom Demands

Snatch attack volume has been modest compared to leading ransomware operators but is on pace to increase about 50% in 2023 compared to 2022 levels. Snatch ransom demands are relatively low compared to leading ransomware operators, ranging from several thousand to tens of thousands of dollars.

Technical Details of Snatch

Snatch is written in Go and is somewhat unique in that the ransomware reboots in safe mode to make sure the security tools are not running. Persistence and privilege escalation are not byproducts of the reboot. Snatch abuses legitimate tools like Process Hacker, Uninstaller, IObit, BCDEDIT, PowerTool, and PsExec. Snatch deletes Volume Shadow Copies to prevent encryption rollbacks.

Targeting Strategy

Snatch targeting varies widely based on their affiliates preferences. Snatch is one of the more traditional RaaS platforms, where most of the targeting and attack sequence structure is left to the individual affiliates, including whether to exfiltrate data for double extortion.

Recent Ransomware Attacks

The Recent Ransomware Attacks (RRA) site acts as a watchtower, providing you with near real-time ransomware tracking of attacks, groups and their victims. Given threat actors’ overarching, lucrative success so far, ransomware attacks have become the most ubiquitous, and financially and informationally impactful cyber threat to businesses and organizations today.

The site’s data is generated based on hosting choices of real-world threat actors, and a handful of other trackers. While sanitization efforts have been taken, we cannot guarantee 100% accuracy of the data. Attack updates will be made as source data is reported by reputable sources. By viewing, accessing, or using RRA you acknowledge you are doing so at your own risk.