The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has alerted Nigerians to a plan by a cybercrime group to deliver ransomware to targeted organisational networks.
The scheme, uncovered by security experts, has been categorised by the Nigerian Computer Emergency Response Team’s (ngCERT) advisory released at the weekend, as high-risk and critical.
NCC, in a statement by its Director of Public Affairs, Ike Adinde, yesterday, quoted the advisory, as saying that the criminal group has been mailing out USB thumb drives to many organisations in anticipation that recipients will plug them into their personal computers (PCs) and install the ransomware on their networks. While businesses are being targeted, criminals could soon begin sending infected USB drives to individuals.
Globally, it disclosed that 2021 recorded a record-breaking number of cyber attacks, with a 50 per cent increase in overall breaches per week on corporate networks compared to the year before.
Further, the NCC statement, describing how the cybercrime group runs the ransomware, informed that the ngCERT advisory said the USB drives contain so-called ‘BadUSB’ attacks. It said the bad USB exploits the USB standards’ versatility and allows an attacker to reprogramme a USB drive to emulate a keyboard to create keystrokes and commands on a computer. It then installs malware prior to the operating system booting, or spoofs a network card to redirect traffic.
