Earlier this week, KrebsOnSecurity revealed that the darknet web site for the Snatch ransomware group was leaking information about its customers and the crime gang’s inner operations. At the moment, we’ll take a more in-depth have a look at the historical past of Snatch, its alleged founder, and their claims that everybody has confused them with a special, older ransomware group by the identical identify.
Based on a September 20, 2023 joint advisory from the FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Administration (CISA), Snatch was initially named Group Truniger, primarily based on the nickname of the group’s founder and organizer — Truniger.
The FBI/CISA report says Truniger beforehand operated as an affiliate of GandCrab, an early ransomware-as-a-service providing that closed up store after a number of years and claims to have extorted greater than $2 billion from victims. GandCrab dissolved in July 2019, and is believed to have grow to be “REvil,” one of the crucial ruthless and rapacious Russian ransomware teams of all time.
The federal government says Snatch used a custom-made ransomware variant notable for rebooting Microsoft Home windows units into Protected Mode — enabling the ransomware to avoid detection by antivirus or endpoint safety — after which encrypting information when few companies are operating.
“Snatch menace actors have been noticed buying beforehand stolen information from different ransomware variants in an try to additional exploit victims into paying a ransom to keep away from having their information launched on Snatch’s extortion weblog,” the FBI/CISA alert reads. It continues:
“Previous to deploying the ransomware, Snatch menace actors had been noticed spending as much as three months on a sufferer’s system. Inside this timeframe, Snatch menace actors exploited the sufferer’s community transferring laterally throughout the sufferer’s community with RDP for the biggest potential deployment of ransomware and trying to find information and folders for information exfiltration adopted by file encryption.”
New York Metropolis-based cyber intelligence agency Flashpoint mentioned the Snatch ransomware group was created in 2018, primarily based on Truniger’s recruitment each on Russian language cybercrime boards and public Russian programming boards. Flashpoint mentioned Truniger recruited “pen testers” for a brand new, then-unnamed cybercrime group, by posting their personal Jabber on the spot messenger contact particulars on a number of Russian language coding boards, in addition to on Fb.
“The command requires Home windows system directors,” Truniger’s adverts defined. “Expertise in backup, improve privileges, mikicatz, community. Particulars after contacting on jabber: truniger@xmpp[.]jp.”
In at the least a few of these recruitment adverts — like one in 2018 on the discussion board sysadmins[.]ru –the username selling Truniger’s contact data was Semen7907. In April 2020, Truniger was banned from two of the highest Russian cybercrime boards, the place members from each boards confirmed that Semen7907 was one in all Truniger’s identified aliases.
[SIDE NOTE: Truniger was banned because he purchased credentials to a company from a network access broker on the dark web, and although he promised to share a certain percentage of whatever ransom amount Truniger’s group extracted from the victim, Truniger paid the access broker just a few hundred dollars off of a six-figure ransom].
Based on Constella Intelligence, an information breach and menace actor analysis platform, a person named Semen7907 registered in 2017 on the Russian-language programming discussion board pawno[.]ru utilizing the e-mail deal with tretyakov-files@yandex.ru.
That very same e mail deal with was assigned to the person “Semen-7907” on the now defunct gaming web site tunngle.web, which suffered an information breach in 2020. Semen-7907 registered at Tunngle from the Web deal with 31.192.175[.]63, which is in Yekaterinburg, RU.
Constella stories that tretyakov-files@yandex.ru was additionally used to register an account on the on-line recreation stalker[.]so with the nickname Trojan7907.
There’s a Skype person by the deal with semen7907, and which has the identify Semyon Tretyakov from Yekaterinburg, RU. Constella additionally discovered a breached report from the Russian cell telephony web site tele2[.]ru, which exhibits {that a} person from Yekaterinburg registered in 2019 with the identify Semyon Sergeyvich Tretyakov and e mail deal with tretyakov-files@ya.ru.
The above accounts, in addition to the e-mail deal with semen_7907@mail.ru, had been all registered or accessed from the identical Yekaterinburg Web deal with talked about beforehand: 31.192.175.63. The Russian cell phone quantity related to that tele2[.]ru account is related to the Telegram account “Perchatka,” (“glove” in Russian).
BAD BEATS
Reached by way of Telegram, Perchatka (a.ok.a. Mr. Tretyakov) mentioned he was not a cybercriminal, and that he at present has a full-time job working in IT at a serious firm (he declined to specify which).
Offered with the data gathered for this report (and extra that isn’t printed right here), Mr. Tretyakov acknowledged that Semen7907 was his account on sysadmins[.]ru, the exact same account Truniger used to recruit hackers for the Snatch Ransomware group again in 2018.
Nevertheless, he claims that he by no means made these posts, and that another person should have assumed management over his sysadmins[.]ru account and posted as him. Mr. Tretyakov mentioned that KrebsOnSecurity’s outreach this week was the primary time he turned conscious that his sysadmins[.]ru account was used with out his permission.
Mr. Tretyakov instructed somebody could have framed him, pointing to an August 2023 story at a Russian information outlet concerning the reported hack and leak of the person database from sysadmins[.]ru, allegedly by the hands of a pro-Ukrainian hacker group known as CyberSec.
“Not too long ago, due to the struggle in Ukraine, an enormous variety of databases have been leaked and discovering details about an individual just isn’t tough,” Tretyakov mentioned. “I’ve been utilizing this login since about 2013 on all of the boards the place I register, and I don’t at all times set a robust password. If I had achieved one thing unlawful, I might have hidden significantly better :D.”
[For the record, KrebsOnSecurity does not generally find this to be the case, as the ongoing Breadcrumbs series will attest.]
A Semyon Sergeyvich Tretyakov is listed because the composer of a Russian-language rap tune known as “Parallels,” which appears to be concerning the pursuit of a high-risk life-style on-line. A snippet of the tune goes:
“Somebody is on the display screen, somebody is on the blacklist
I activate the timer and calculate the dangers
I don’t need to keep broke And within the pursuit of cash
I can’t take these zeros Life is sort of a zebra –
everybody needs to be first Both the stripes are white,
or we’re transferring via the wilds I gained’t waste time.”
Mr. Tretyakov mentioned he was not the writer of that individual rhyme, however that he has been identified to report his personal rhythms.
“Generally I make unhealthy beats,” he mentioned. “Soundcloud.”
NEVER MIND THE DOMAIN NAME
The FBI/CISA alert on Snatch Ransomware (PDF) consists of an attention-grabbing caveat: It says Snatch really deploys ransomware on sufferer methods, however it additionally acknowledges that the present occupants of Snatch’s darkish and clear net domains name themselves Snatch Group, and preserve that they don’t seem to be the identical individuals as Snatch Ransomware from 2018.
Right here’s the attention-grabbing bit from the FBI/CISA report:
“Since November 2021, an extortion web site working underneath the identify Snatch served as a clearinghouse for information exfiltrated or stolen from sufferer firms on Clearnet and TOR hosted by a bulletproof internet hosting service. In August 2023, people claiming to be related to the weblog gave a media interview claiming the weblog was not related to Snatch ransomware and “none of our targets has been attacked by Ransomware Snatch…”, regardless of a number of confirmed Snatch victims’ information showing on the weblog alongside victims related to different ransomware teams, notably Nokoyawa and Conti.”
Avid readers will recall a narrative right here earlier this week about Snatch Group’s leaky darknet web site primarily based in Yekaterinburg, RU that uncovered their inner operations and Web addresses of their guests. The leaked information recommend that Snatch is one in all a number of ransomware teams utilizing paid adverts on Google.com to trick individuals into putting in malware disguised as well-liked free software program, akin to Microsoft Groups, Adobe Reader, Mozilla Thunderbird, and Discord.
Snatch Group claims to deal solely in stolen information — not in deploying ransomware malware to carry methods hostage.
Representatives of the Snatch Group lately answered questions from Databreaches.web concerning the claimed discrepancy within the FBI/CISA report.
“To begin with, we repeat as soon as once more that we now have nothing to do with Snatch Ransomware, we’re Safety Notification Attachment, and we now have by no means violated the phrases of the concluded transactions, as a result of our honesty and openness is the assure of our revenue,” the Snatch Group wrote to Databreaches.web in response to questions.
However to date the Snatch Group has not been capable of clarify why it’s utilizing the exact same domains that the Snatch ransomware group used?
Their declare is much more unbelievable as a result of the Snatch Group members advised Databreaches.web they didn’t even know {that a} ransomware group with that identify already existed once they initially shaped simply two years in the past.
That is tough to swallow as a result of even when they had been a separate group, they’d nonetheless have to someway coordinate the switch of the Ransomware group’s domains on the clear and darkish webs. In the event that they had been hoping for a recent begin or separation, why not simply choose a brand new identify and new net vacation spot?
“Snatchteam[.]cc is actually an information market,” they continued. “The one factor to underline is that we’re towards promoting leaked data, sticking to the concept of free entry. Completely any group can come to us and supply data for publication. Much more, we now have heard rumors that plenty of ransomware groups scare their shoppers that they’ll submit leaked data on our useful resource. We wouldn’t have our personal ransomware, however we’re open to cooperation on placement and monetization of dates (sic).”
Possibly Snatch Group doesn’t want to be related to Snatch Ransomware as a result of they at present imagine stealing information after which extorting sufferer firms for cash is someway much less evil than infecting all the sufferer’s servers and backups with ransomware.
Additionally it is seemingly that Snatch Group is properly conscious of how poorly a few of their founders lined their tracks on-line, and are hoping for a do-over on that entrance.
