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November 19, 2017 06:00 pm

'Lazy' Hackers Exploit Microsoft RDP To Install Ransomware

An anonymous reader writes:An investigation by Sophos has uncovered a new, lazy but effective ransomware attack where hackers brute force passwords on computers with [Microsoft's] Remote Desktop Protocol enabled, use off-the-shelf privilege escalation exploits to make themselves admins, turn off security software and then manually run fusty old versions of ransomware. They even delete the recovery files created by Windows Live backup -- and make sure they can also scramble the database. "Because they've used their sysadmin powers to rig the system to be as insecure as they can, they can often use older versions of ransomware, perhaps even variants that other crooks have given up on and that are now floating around the internet 'for free'." Most of the attacks hit small-to-medium companies with 30 or fewer employees, since "with small scale comes a dependence on external IT suppliers or 'jack-of-all-trades' IT generalists trying to manage cybersecurity along with many other responsibilities. In one case a victim was attacked repeatedly, because of a weak password used by a third-party application that demanded 24-hour administrator access for its support staff."

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