Organizations in the financial sector were disclosed by Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 principal threat researcher Kristopher Russo to have been initially targeted by the Scattered Spider hacking group before wreaking havoc on UK and U.S. retailers, The Register reports.
Attacks by the threat group, which usually have insider knowledge regarding the targeted sectors, could soon be diverted toward other industries, according to Russo. "It's more the amorphous nature of this group, where they're bringing people in and losing people all the time, and you have people that have specialties in software that's used by a specific industry," Russo added. Such a development comes as major cryptocurrency exchanges Binance and Kraken were reportedly compromised by unknown threat actors, with the former purportedly subjected to a social engineering attack that lured users into placing their funds in an attacker-controlled wallet. While such tactics have been employed by Scattered Spider, evidence linking the crypto hacks to the group remains lacking, noted Russo.
Attacks by the threat group, which usually have insider knowledge regarding the targeted sectors, could soon be diverted toward other industries, according to Russo. "It's more the amorphous nature of this group, where they're bringing people in and losing people all the time, and you have people that have specialties in software that's used by a specific industry," Russo added. Such a development comes as major cryptocurrency exchanges Binance and Kraken were reportedly compromised by unknown threat actors, with the former purportedly subjected to a social engineering attack that lured users into placing their funds in an attacker-controlled wallet. While such tactics have been employed by Scattered Spider, evidence linking the crypto hacks to the group remains lacking, noted Russo.
