Author: Francis Guibernau

Francis conducts in-depth threat research and analysis to design and create highly sophisticated and realistic adversary emulations. He also coordinates the CTI project, which focuses on researching, analyzing, tracking, and documenting adversaries, malware families, and cybersecurity incidents. Francis has extensive experience in adversary intelligence, encompassing both Nation-State and eCrime threats, as well as in vulnerability assessment and management, having previously worked at Deloitte and BNP Paribas.

    Emulating the Financially Motivated Criminal Adversary FIN7 – Part 2

    February 14, 2025
    AttackIQ has released two new attack graphs that emulate the behaviors exhibited by the long-standing, financially motivated Russian criminal adversary known as FIN7 based on activities observed between 2022 and 2023.
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    Emulating the Splintered Hunters International Ransomware

    January 27, 2025
    AttackIQ has released a new attack graph emulating the behaviors exhibited by Hunters International ransomware since its discovery in October 2023. Technical analysis suggests a realistic possibility that Hunters International may have been deployed by actors linked to the disrupted Hive operation. However, while it bears significant similarities, Hunters International is not a direct rebrand.
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    Response to CISA Advisory (AA25-022A): Threat Actors Chained Vulnerabilities in Ivanti Cloud Service Applications

    January 24, 2025
    AttackIQ has released a new assessment template in response to the CISA Advisory (AA25-022A) published on January 22, 2025, which details the exploitation of vulnerabilities discovered in Ivanti Cloud Service Appliances during September 2024.
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    Emulating the Tenacious Ako Ransomware

    January 9, 2025
    AttackIQ has released a new attack graph emulating the behaviors exhibited by Ako ransomware since its emergence in January 2020. Contrary to many ransomware strains that focus on individual workstations, Ako targets entire networks, maximizing its impact. It is considered a variant of MedusaLocker due to numerous shared traits, including its defensive behavior and its strategic isolation of specific machines for encryption.
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    Emulating the Financially Motivated Criminal Adversary FIN7 – Part 1

    December 12, 2024
    AttackIQ has released two new attack graphs that emulate the behaviors exhibited by the long-standing, financially motivated criminal adversary known as FIN7 during its most recent activities in 2024.
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    Response to CISA Advisory (AA24-317A): 2023 Top Routinely Exploited Vulnerabilities

    November 13, 2024
    In response to the recently published CISA Advisory (AA24-317A) that disseminates the top routinely exploited vulnerabilities from 2023, AttackIQ has proposed a multitude of recommendations that customers can take to emulate these prevalent vulnerabilities.
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    Response to CISA Advisory (AA24-290A): Iranian Cyber Actors’ Brute Force and Credential Access Activity Compromises Critical Infrastructure Organizations

    October 17, 2024
    AttackIQ has released a new assessment template in response to the CISA Advisory (AA24-290A), published on October 16, 2024. The advisory highlights that since October 2023, Iranian cyber actors have used password spraying and multifactor authentication (MFA) ‘push bombing’ to compromise user accounts and gain access to organizations across various critical infrastructure sectors.
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    Emulating the Opportunistic and Lightweight Lumma Stealer

    October 15, 2024
    AttackIQ has released a new assessment template that addresses the numerous post-compromise Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) associated with the subscription-based information stealer known as Lumma Stealer.
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    Emulating the Petrifying Medusa Ransomware

    September 19, 2024
    AttackIQ has released a new attack graph that emulates the behaviors exhibited by Medusa ransomware since the beginning of its activities in June 2021. Medusa is predominantly propagated through the exploitation of vulnerable services, such as public-facing assets or applications with known unpatched vulnerabilities, and the hijacking of legitimate accounts, often using Initial Access Brokers (IABs) for infiltration.
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    Response to CISA Advisory (AA24-249A): Russian Military Cyber Actors Target US and Global Critical Infrastructure

    September 10, 2024
    AttackIQ has released a new assessment template in response to the CISA Advisory (AA24-249A) published on September 5, 2024, that assesses cyber actors affiliated with the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) 161st Specialist Training Center (Unit 29155), who are responsible for computer network operations against global targets for the purposes of espionage, sabotage, and reputational harm since at least 2020.
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    Response to CISA Advisory (AA24-242A): #StopRansomware: RansomHub Ransomware

    September 5, 2024
    AttackIQ has released a new assessment template in response to the CISA Advisory (AA24-207A) published on August 29, 2024, that disseminates known RansomHub ransomware IOCs and TTPs that have been identified through FBI threat response activities and third-party reporting as recently as August 2024.
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    Emulating the Extortionist Mallox Ransomware

    August 30, 2024
    AttackIQ has released a new attack graph that emulates the behaviors exhibited by Mallox ransomware since the beginning of its activities in June 2021. Mallox primarily gains access to victim networks through dictionary brute-force attacks against unsecured MS-SQL servers.
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    Emulating Sandworm’s Prestige Ransomware

    August 2, 2024
    AttackIQ has released a new attack graph that emulates the behaviors exhibited by Prestige ransomware since the beginning of its activities in October 2022. Prestige has been observed targeting organizations in the transportation and related logistics sectors located in Ukraine and Poland. In November 2022, it was assessed that the Russian adversary known as Sandworm was most likely behind these attacks.
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    Emulating the Politically Motivated North Korean Adversary Andariel – Part 2

    July 31, 2024
    AttackIQ has released a new attack graph that emulates the behaviors exhibited by the North Korean state-sponsored adversary Andariel during Operation Blacksmith which affected manufacturing, agricultural and physical security companies in multiple regions.
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    Response to CISA Advisory (AA24-207A): North Korea Cyber Group Conducts Global Espionage Campaign to Advance Regime’s Military and Nuclear Programs

    July 26, 2024
    AttackIQ has released a new assessment template in response to the CISA Advisory (AA24-207A) published on July 25, 2024, that highlights cyber espionage activity associated with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)’s Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB) 3rd Bureau based in Pyongyang and Sinuiju.
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    Emulating the Prickly Cactus Ransomware

    July 25, 2024
    AttackIQ has released a new attack graph that emulates the behaviors exhibited by the Cactus ransomware since the beginning of its activities in March 2023. Cactus has targeted a wide variety of organizations since its inception and has breached more than 140 entities as of July 2024.
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    Emulating the Long-Term Extortionist Nefilim Ransomware

    July 11, 2024
    AttackIQ has released a new attack graph that emulates the behaviors exhibited by the extortionist ransomware Nefilim during activities against multiple organizations, primarily based in North or South America, distributed in the financial, manufacturing, or transportation industries since its emergence in March 2020.
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    Emulating the Sabotage-Focused Russian Adversary Sandworm
    – Part 2

    July 3, 2024
    AttackIQ has released two new attack graphs that emulate the behaviors exhibited by the highly sophisticated Russian adversary Sandworm during various destructive activities against targets in Ukraine and other countries in the region shortly before the launch of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022.
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    Response to CISA Advisory (AA24-060A): #StopRansomware: Phobos Ransomware

    June 5, 2024
    AttackIQ has released a new attack graph in response to the CISA Advisory (AA24-060A) published on February 29, 2024, which disseminates known Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) and Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) associated with the Phobos Ransomware variants observed as recently as February 2024.
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    Response to CISA Advisory (AA24-131A): #StopRansomware: Black Basta

    May 17, 2024
    AttackIQ has released a new attack graph in response to the recently published CISA Advisory (AA24-131A) which disseminates known Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) and Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) associated to Black Basta ransomware, a ransomware variant whose operators have encrypted and stolen data from at least 12 out of 16 critical infrastructure sectors, including the Healthcare and Public Health (HPH) Sector.
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    Response to CISA Advisory (AA24-109A): #StopRansomware: Akira Ransomware

    April 22, 2024
    AttackIQ has released a new attack graph in response to the recently published CISA Advisory (AA24-109A) which disseminates known Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) and Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) associated to Akira ransomware, identified through FBI investigations and trusted third party reporting as recently as February 2024.
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    Emulating the Southeast Asian Adversary OceanLotus

    April 16, 2024
    AttackIQ has released four new attack graphs that seek to emulate the behaviors exhibited by the politically motivated Vietnamese adversary known as OceanLotus during its most recent and prevalent activities.
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    Response to ScreenConnect’s Recent Zero-day Vulnerability Exploitation

    March 8, 2024
    AttackIQ has released a new assessment template in response to the recent wave of zero-day vulnerability exploits affecting ConnectWise’s ScreenConnect software. This assessment template comprises the various Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) exhibited by several adversaries observed exploiting these vulnerabilities to deploy different families of Ransomware.
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    Response to the Revised CISA Advisory (AA23-353A): #StopRansomware: ALPHV BlackCat

    March 7, 2024
    AttackIQ has released an update to the BlackCat ransomware emulation in response to the recent revision of the CISA Advisory (AA23-353A) which disseminates Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) and Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) identified through FBI investigations as recently as February 2024.
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