Fortinet: Use of wipers expanding beyond Ukraine to 24 countries

guest · Aug 18, 2022

August 17, 2022

The use of wiper malware is increasingly expanding beyond the Ukraine conflict, according to research released today by cybersecurity giant Fortinet, with new variants popping up at an unprecedented rate.

Wiper malware has been used heavily by hacking groups supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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Fortinet security researcher Gergely Révay told The Record that wiper malware is increasingly reaching targets outside of Ukraine. While versions of wiper malware have previously been seen in Ukraine, Japan and Israel, it only recently became a truly global phenomenon. Révay said Fortinet detected wiper malware in 24 countries in the first half of the year.

“These wipers were not only related to the Ukraine war,” Révay said, although many were. “We saw significant spillover from attacks against Ukraine. In many cases the main target was probably a Ukrainian organization, but due to the interconnectedness of the world, these attacks can easily affect other countries.”
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In the report released Wednesday, Fortinet researchers called the evolution in wiper usage “disturbing.”

The group found at least seven major new wiper variants in the first six months of 2022 that were used in various campaigns against government, military, and private organizations.
That amount nearly equals the total number of variants that were publicly detected between 2012 and 2021.

“We are not aware that any of these recent wipers were used by cybercriminals or commercial hackers, but this is also expected,” Révay explained.
“The ‘problem’ with wipers is that they are very difficult to monetize, since they are purely destructive and don’t provide any leverage to the attacker over their victims.”
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Fortinet: Key Findings from the 1H 2022 FortiGuard Labs Threat Report

Wipers are Widening Their Foothold Across Borders
Analyzing wiper malware data reveals a disturbing trend of cybercriminals using more destructive and sophisticated attack techniques – in this case, using malicious software that destroys data by wiping it.

In the first six months of 2022, FortiGuard Labs identified at least seven significant new wiper variants used by attackers in various targeted campaigns against government, military, and private organizations. This number is important because it's nearly as many total wiper variants as have been publicly detected in the past 10 years. While we saw a substantial increase in the use of this attack vector in conjunction with the war in Ukraine, the use of disk-wiping malware was also detected in 24 additional countries.
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EASTER · Aug 18, 2022

That's a massive proliferation just for those malware disk/data wipers alone.
10 years worth in a single bulk mass distribution campaign speaks volumes.

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Fortinet: Use of wipers expanding beyond Ukraine to 24 countries

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