July 14, 2021

REvil Ransomware Attack on Kaseya

Recommendation for Lookout Admins

While there is no silver bullet against ransomware, combining Lookout Zero Trust Network Access, Modern Endpoint Protection, and User & Entity Behavior Analytics will help mitigate the risk. By doing this, Lookout admins can continuously assess risk across endpoints, protect employees from account compromise, identify anomalous user and device behavior, and modernize access policies to cloud and on-premises infrastructure. Adopting a well-rounded strategy based in Zero Trust will help mitigate the risk of unauthorized users gaining access to your infrastructure, exfiltrating data, and locking down resources for ransom.

Overview

Kaseya, which provides IT management software services to thousands of businesses across various verticals, recently fell victim to a ransomware attack executed by the REvil group. REvil was also responsible for the ransomware attack on meat provider JBS, which came on the heels of the Colonial Pipeline attack. This attack exploited an authentication vulnerability in the web interface of Kaseya’s VSA service, which allowed the attackers to circumvent security measures and execute their attack. In all, about 50 direct customers and between 800 and 1,500 businesses down the chain were affected by this attack.

Lookout Analysis

Reminiscent of Solarwinds, this attack was carried out as a supply chain attack by pushing the ransomware through a malicious software update. Since VSA is such a trusted service, integrated systems will generally accept any requests from it. However, the base issue of this incident is unauthorized access to the VSA backend itself.

It can be incredibly difficult to have enough visibility into your infrastructure and understand indications of a compromised account or service – especially in the cloud. Therefore, it’s so important to have context-based login and access policies that can observe and baseline user behavior to detect anomalous activity such as an abnormal login location or massive data exfiltration.

Authors

Lookout

Cloud & Endpoint Security

Lookout, Inc. is the data-centric cloud security company that uses a defense-in-depth strategy to address the different stages of a modern cybersecurity attack. Data is at the core of every organization, and our approach to cybersecurity is designed to protect that data within today’s evolving threat landscape no matter where or how it moves.

Entry Type
Threat Guidances
Threat Type
Malware
Platform(s) Affected
Threat Guidances
Malware

Stop Cyberattacks Before They Start With Industry-Leading Threat Intelligence.

HeaderHeaderHeaderHeader
CellCellCellCell
CellCellCellCell
CellCellCellCell
CellCellCellCell