Lapsus$

Lapsus$, stylised as LAPSUS$ and classified by Microsoft as Strawberry Tempest,[1] is an international extortion-focused[2] hacker group known for its various cyberattacks against companies and government agencies.[3][4] The group was globally active, and has had members arrested in Brazil and the UK.[5]

Lapsus$
Formation2021
TypeCybercrime gang
HeadquartersUnknown
Region
International
MethodsSpearphishing, SIM swapping, recruitment of accomplices via social media, extortion, hacking
Membership
7 (March 2022 estimate)
Official language
English
AffiliationsUnknown

The composition of the group was described by City of London Police, with at least two of the members being teenagers. Lapsus$ uses a variety of attack vectors, including social engineering, MFA fatigue, SIM swapping, and targeting suppliers. Once the group has gained the credentials to a privileged employee within the target organisation, the group then attempts to obtain sensitive data through a variety of means, including using remote desktop tools. Attempts at extortion follow. The messaging app Telegram had been used for communications to the public, including recruitment and posting sensitive data from their victims, although that usage has diminished.[6]

The first major cyberattack attributed to Lapsus$ was against the Brazilian Health Ministry's computer systems in December 2021.[7] In March 2022, Lapsus$ gained notoriety for a series of cyberattacks against large tech companies, including Microsoft, Nvidia, and Samsung. Following these attacks, the City of London Police announced that it had made seven arrests in connection to a police investigation into Lapsus$.[8] Although the group had been considered inactive by April 2022, the group is believed to have re-emerged in September 2022 with a series of data breaches against various large companies through a similar attack vector, including Uber and Rockstar Games, with subsequent arrests again by City of London Police, and Brazilian police.[5] The group appears to have become inactive after September 2022, with members perhaps dispersing to other groups, [5] and the conviction of two British members.[9]

Attacks

Brazil's Ministry of Health (2021)

The first known cyberattack committed by Lapsus$ was against Brazil's Ministry of Health. The Ministry of Health website was taken down on Friday, 10 December around 1 AM. Lapsus$ left a message on the homepage of the website of the ministry ,,Contact us if you want your data back",[7] apparently with 50 TB of data exfiltrated and deleted on internal servers. In the message were also included their Telegram and e-mail addresses.[7] By Friday afternoon the message had been removed, but the website was still dysfunctional and user data in the ConectSUS app that provides Brazilians with Covid vaccination certificates had been deleted, causing disruption for travelers.

On October 19, 2022 a Brazilian citizen believed to be a Lapsus$ member was arrested by the police in Feira de Santana, Bahia and subsequently accused of the attack on the Brazil Ministry of Health and other cybercrimes after operation Dark cloud. Lapsus$ attacks includes dozens of other targets from the Brazilian Federal Government bodies and entities, like the Ministry of Economy, the Comptroller General of the Union, and the Federal Highway Police. The data appears permanently deleted.

Okta (2022)

On 21 January 2022, Lapsus$ had gained access into the servers of identity and access management company Okta through the compromised account of a third-party customer support engineer. Okta confirmed the breach on 25 January 2022.[10][11]Based on the final forensic report, Okta's Chief Security Officer David Bradbury said the attacker only accessed the two active customers. Okta began investigating claims of a hack after Lapsus$ shared screenshots in a Telegram channel implying they had breached Okta's customer networks. Initially, Okta said that a Lapsus$ hacker obtained Remote Desktop (RDP) access to a Sitel support engineer's laptop over "a five-day window" between January 16 and January 21.

Nvidia (2022)

On 23 February 2022, technology company Nvidia became aware of a breach into its systems. Lapsus$ claimed to have a terabyte of data from Nvidia, and threatened to release the "complete silicon, graphics, and computer chipset files for all recent NVIDIA GPUs, including the RTX 3090Ti and upcoming revisions" if Nvidia didn't open-source its device drivers.[12][3] On 3 March, the credentials for Nvidia's over 71,000 employees emerged online.[13]

Samsung (2022)

On 4 March 2022, Lapsus$ posted a 190 GB torrent to internal data belonging to phone manufacturer Samsung, including the source code of its Samsung Galaxy line of phones. Samsung confirmed the breach three days later.[14]

Mercado Libre (2022)

On 8 March 2022, Argentinian e-commerce company Mercado Libre confirmed that user data for 300,000 customers had been accessed by Lapsus$; the group also claimed to have access to 24,000 repositories belonging to Mercado Libre.[15]

Ubisoft (2022)

On 10 March 2022, gaming company Ubisoft confirmed that it had experienced a "cyber security incident", although user data had not been accessed.[16]

T-Mobile (2022)

On 17 March 2022, Lapsus$ had gained access to an employee account within the telecommunications company T-Mobile. A prominent member of Lapsus$ going by the pseudonym "White" unsuccessfully attempted to gain access to the T-Mobile accounts of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Department of Defense. Lapsus$ was, however, able to obtain the source code repositories belonging to T-Mobile.[17]

Microsoft (2022)

On 20 March 2022, Lapsus$ posted a screenshot of the technology company Microsoft's Azure DevOps server to their Telegram channel. The following day, the group released a 37 GB zip file containing, among other things, "90% of the source code for the Bing search engine".[18][19][20][21]

Globant (2022)

On 30 March 2022, Luxembourg-based IT company Globant confirmed its network had been breached by Lapsus$.[22]

Uber (2022)

On 15 September 2022, mobility-as-a-service company Uber announced that it had been breached by Lapsus$.[23]

Rockstar Games (2022)
See also: Untitled Grand Theft Auto game ยง Leak

On 18 September 2022, 90 videos of game footage relating to an untitled Grand Theft Auto game emerged on GTAForums.[24] The hacker is thought to have been affiliated with Lapsus$.[25]

Interactions

The group used the messaging app Telegram, and the Lapsus$ Telegram channel was used to announce data dumps and to recruit accomplices. As of March 2022, it has nearly 50,000 subscribers.[6] The group posted polls as to which organisation the group should target next.[26]

The FBI made an appeal for information on 21 March 2022.[27]

Composition

According to the indictment, the group's mastermind was Arion Kurtaj, a 16-year-old residing in Oxford, England, and another core member is a teenager in Brazil.[28][29][30] A Bloomberg report stated that the group has seven members and was likely formed recently.[31][28]

Arrests and convictions

On 24 March 2022, seven people aged between 16 and 21 were arrested by the City of London Police in connection to a police investigation into Lapsus$. An alleged prominent member of the group with the pseudonym White was arrested in Oxford, England. His identity had allegedly previously been disclosed by a former associate, and various groups including research group Unit 221B were reported to have identified him.[32] The prominent member was charged alongside a 17-year-old on 1 April 2022.[33][29] He was assessed by psychiatrists as unfit to stand trial,[30] but a 7-week court case proceeded until August 2023, and resulted both the 17-year old and the prominent member being convicted.[9]

Analysis

The group's assumed modus operandi was based on obtaining access to a victim organisation's corporate network by acquiring credentials from privileged employees. These credentials were acquired in a number of ways, including recruitment[34] or hacking privileged employees using methods such as SIM swapping.[6] Lapsus$ then used remote desktop or network access to obtain sensitive data, such as customer account details or source code. The group then extorted the victim organisation with threats of disclosing the data.[20] In the conspicuous cases, the data was then subsequently released, and information posted on Telegram.

Lapsus$ has used the social engineering tactic known as a multi-factor authentication fatigue attack in its hack of Uber.[35][36][37]

The methods used by Lapsus$ were the subject of a review by the US Cyber Safety Review Board in mid 2023.[5]

References
  1. "DEV-0537 criminal actor targeting organizations for data exfiltration and destruction". Microsoft Security Blog. 22 March 2022. Retrieved 24 March 2022.
  2. "Defending against attacks". Security Insider. Microsoft Security. 22 August 2022. Retrieved 8 October 2022.
  3. Goodin, Dan (4 March 2022). "Cybercriminals who breached Nvidia issue one of the most unusual demands ever". Ars Technica. Retrieved 14 March 2022.
  4. Winder, Davey (8 March 2022). "Samsung Confirms Massive Galaxy Hack After 190GB Data Torrent Shared Via Telegram". Forbes. Retrieved 14 March 2022.
  5. "Review of the attacks associated with Lapsus$ and associated threat groups" (PDF). CISA.Gov. US Government Cyber Safety Review Board. Archived (PDF) from the original on 10 August 2023. Retrieved 11 August 2023.
  6. Krebs, Brian (23 March 2022). "A Closer Look at the LAPSUS$ Data Extortion Group". Krebs On Security. Retrieved 24 March 2022.
  7. "Brazil health ministry website hit by hackers, vaccination data targeted". Reuters. 11 December 2021. Retrieved 24 March 2022.
  8. Peters, Jay (24 March 2022). "Seven teenagers arrested in connection with the Lapsus$ hacking group".
  9. "Lapsus$: Court finds teenagers carried out hacking spree". BBC News. 23 August 2023. Retrieved 23 August 2023.
  10. Porter, Jon (22 March 2022). "Okta hack puts thousands of businesses on high alert". The Verge. Retrieved 22 March 2022.
  11. Newman, Lily Hay (28 March 2022). "Leaked Details of the Lapsus$ Hack Make Okta's Slow Response Look More Bizarre". Wired. Retrieved 1 April 2022.
  12. Clark, Mitchell (1 March 2022). "Nvidia says its 'proprietary information' is being leaked by hackers". The Verge.
  13. Gatlan, Sergiu (3 March 2022). "NVIDIA data breach exposed credentials of over 71,000 employees". BleepingComputer. Retrieved 21 September 2022.
  14. Glover, Claudia (7 March 2022). "Is Lapsus$ targeting Big Tech after Samsung breach?". Tech Monitor. Retrieved 14 March 2022.
  15. Sharma, Ax. "E-commerce giant Mercado Libre confirms source code data breach". BleepingComputer. Retrieved 23 March 2022.
  16. Peters, Jay (11 March 2022). "Ubisoft says it experienced a 'cyber security incident', and the purported Nvidia hackers are taking credit". The Verge. Retrieved 14 March 2022.
  17. Krebs, Brian (22 April 2022). "Leaked Chats Show LAPSUS$ Stole T-Mobile Source Code". Krebs on Security. Retrieved 22 April 2022.
  18. Cox, Joseph (21 March 2022). "Microsoft Investigating Claim of Breach by Extortion Gang". Motherboard. Vice. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  19. Clark, Mitchell; Lawler, Richard; Peters, Jay (22 March 2022). "Microsoft confirms Lapsus$ hackers stole source code via 'limited' access". The Verge. Vox Media. Retrieved 22 March 2022.
  20. Abrams, Lawrence. "Lapsus$ hackers leak 37GB of Microsoft's alleged source code". BleepingComputer. Retrieved 23 March 2022.
  21. Newman, Lily Hay (22 March 2022). "'This Is Really, Really Bad': Lapsus$ Gang Claims Okta Hack". Wired. Retrieved 23 March 2022.
  22. Goodin, Dan (30 March 2022). "IT giant Globant discloses hack after Lapsus$ leaks 70GB of stolen data". Ars Technica. Retrieved 31 March 2022.
  23. "Uber says Lapsus$-linked hacker responsible for breach". Reuters. 17 September 2023. Retrieved 17 September 2023.
  24. Kan, Michael (20 September 2022). "Uber Blames Recent Breach on LAPSUS$ Hacking Group". PCMag. Ziff Davis. Archived from the original on 19 September 2022. Retrieved 19 September 2022.
  25. Robinson, Andy (19 September 2022). "Uber 'in contact with the FBI' over potential GTA 6 hacker". Video Games Chronicle. Gamer Network. Archived from the original on 19 September 2022. Retrieved 20 September 2022.
  26. Newman, Lily Hay (15 March 2022). "The Lapsus$ Hacking Group Is Off to a Chaotic Start". Wired.
  27. "Most Wanted: LAPSUS$". www.fbi.gov. 21 March 2022. Archived from the original on 3 April 2022. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
  28. Turton, William; Robertson, Jordan (23 March 2022). "Teen Suspected by Cyber Researchers of Being Lapsus$ Mastermind". Bloomberg. Retrieved 23 March 2022.
  29. "16-year-old living with his mom is mastermind behind Lapsus$ Microsoft hack, cyber detectives say". Fortune. Archived from the original on 1 August 2022. Retrieved 8 October 2022.
  30. Tobin, Sam (11 July 2023). "Teen hacked Uber, Revolut and Grand Theft Auto maker, London court hears". Reuters. Retrieved 17 July 2023.
  31. Burt, Jeff (17 March 2022). "Lapsus$ gang sends a worrying message to would-be criminals". www.theregister.com.
  32. "Lapsus$: Oxford teen accused of being multi-millionaire cyber-criminal". BBC News. 24 March 2022. Retrieved 25 March 2022.
  33. "Lapsus$: Two UK teenagers charged with hacking for gang". BBC News. 1 April 2022.
  34. Paganini, Pierluigi (11 March 2022). "Lapsus$ Ransomware Group is hiring, it announced recruitment of insiders". Security Affairs. Retrieved 23 March 2022.
  35. "MFA Fatigue: Hackers' new favorite tactic in high-profile breaches". BleepingComputer. Retrieved 20 September 2022.
  36. Whittaker, Zack (19 September 2022). "How do you stop another Uber hack?". TechCrunch. Retrieved 20 September 2022.
  37. Goodin, Dan (11 August 2023). "How fame-seeking teenagers hacked some of the world's biggest targets". Ars Technica. Retrieved 11 August 2023.


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