Here's Allison Nixon:
Allison Nixon, chief research officer with the cybersecurity firm Unit 221B.
Here's a clip from the CBS piece:
In the shadowy corners of the dark web, young hackers from the U.S., U.K., and Canada met and teamed up with Russian ransomware hackers, becoming powerful partners in crime. (The US,UK and Canadian hackers are young compared to the Russian hackers who are more experienced and in their 40's.Historically the Russian hackers didn't want any part of the English speaking US/Canadian hackers as they were seen as "not professional".Recent hacks where those hacked paid in the millions to have their computers unlocked changed the minds of the older Russian hackers.
They are now one fierce group to be reckoned with.They are so formidable the FBI has hired their own hackers, the only ones who can compete with the black kats.)
Back to CBS clip:
In the last year, ransomware hackers have targeted hospitals, pharmaceuticals, tech companies, and even Las Vegas' biggest hotels and casinos. Bryan Vorndran, the FBI's top cyber official, called ransomware an "enormous problem," and says no sector, company, or type of organization is off limits to hackers. There are estimates that global losses from ransom payments exceed $1 billion a year.
"Any way you look at the numbers, it's a problem for the global economy, and for the U.S. economy, and for the security of the United States," Vorndran said. Scattered Spider hackers
(gotta love these names almost toooo good!)
A loose-knit group of predominantly native-English speaking hackers, called Scattered Spider by the FBI, are behind some of the recent ransomware attacks, Vorndran said. The group is also known as Star Fraud, UNC3944, and Octo Tempest. Scattered Spider hackers are considered experts in social engineering.
"Part of their success is because they are fluent in Western culture. They know how our society works," said Allison Nixon, chief research officer with the cybersecurity firm Unit 221B. "They know what to say to get someone to do something."
More from the CBS link:
Scattered Spider is just one of many illicit hacking groups, all part of a sprawling collection of online criminals calling themselves "the Community," or "the Com" for short, Nixon said. She describes it as a new, but surprisingly disruptive online subculture. Members of the Com have hacked into companies like Microsoft, Nvidia and Electronic Arts, among others.
The number of people involved has exploded since 2018 from only a few hundred to thousands, Nixon said.
(Imagine thousands of hackers uniting in one group and sabotaging companies from hotels with gambling to electric companies to hospitals you aname it they can likely hack it going through social medias site such as linked-in)
"They connect over the internet. Social spaces where people hang out. Gaming servers," Nixon said. "It's almost analogous to, like, maybe the back alley where the bad kids hang out but on the internet." Those involved are largely males under the age of 25, though Nixon said teens as young as 13 have also been involved in pulling off major crimes.
Infiltrating ransomware gangs on the dark web Members communicate on messaging apps like Telegram – their chatter a toxic stew of racism and sexism. They often boast about the money they've scammed and how menacing they are.
"There are these toxic online spaces where young people can socialize and mingle with criminals and gang members," Nixon said. "And the end result of all of this is this online subculture has formed that glorifies crime, that measures one's personal worth by how much harm they can cause the world."
Hackers team up
Scattered Spider is one of the most sophisticated offshoots of the Com. Their criminal exploits have caught the attention of cybersecurity companies and earned the respect of other criminal hackers, including one of the most notorious Russian ransomware gangs, BlackCat, also known as ALPHV, who saw the young, native-English-speaking Westerners as a potential "force multiplier" for their ransomware attacks.
"Historically speaking, Russian cyber criminals did not like working with Western cyber criminals," Nixon said. "There was not only a language barrier, but also they kinda looked down on them and viewed them as unprofessional."
Scattered Spider uses its English and social engineering skills to break into companies and other entities. BlackCat provides its experience, platform and its malware, which has been used in some of the most consequential ransomware attacks in recent history.
Cybersecurity researchers believe that BlackCat is made up of former members of the Russian cybercriminal hacking group DarkSide/BlackMatter, which was responsible for the 2021 attack on Colonial Pipeline that caused gas shortages up and down the East Coast. And according to an FBI advisory, "Many of the developers and money launderers for BlackCat/ALPHV are linked to DarkSide/BlackMatter, indicating they have extensive networks and experience with ransomware operations."
