A New Report Details Wiper Malware Aimed at Ukraine and Upsurge in Cyber Threats from Likely Russian-backed Actor in the Fourth Quarter of 2021. It successfully targets high-ranking political leaders and executives. The fourth quarter of 2021 saw the world shift out of a two-year pandemic during which bad actors leveraged work from anywhere opportunities and Log4Shell was an unwanted holiday guest. During the first quarter of 2022, the focus on threats shifted to campaigns weaponizing cyberthreats against Ukrainian infrastructure in the Eurasia region conflict. The key findings from the report include individual consumers being the No. 1 target of cybercriminals, closely followed by the healthcare vertical. Additionally, the transportation, shipping, manufacturing and information technology industries showed a sharp increase in threats. There are critical junctures in cybersecurity and observing increasingly hostile behaviour across an ever-expanding attack surface, says an Expert. Our world has fundamentally changed. The fourth quarter signalled the shift out of a two-year pandemic which cybercriminals used for profit and saw the Log4Shell vulnerability impact hundreds of millions of devices, only to continue cyber momentum in the new year where we’ve seen an escalation of international cyber activity.

Trellix Threat Labs has been investigating wiper malware and other cyberthreats targeting Ukraine. Wipers render devices within targeted organizations useless by destroying the memory critical to how the devices operate. Trellix analysis of the Whispergate and Hermetic Wiper Malware used before and during the invasion of Ukraine details the similarities and differences of the two strains used to de-stabilize Ukrainian IT systems by destroying the communications within the country. Trellix observed the continued use of Living off the Land (LotL) methods, where criminals use existing software and controls native to a device to execute an attack. Windows Comma.