The BianLian Ransomware Gang's Attack on American Crane Rental

The BianLian ransomware gang has attacked American Crane Rental. American Crane Rental is a Californian crane company founded in 1966. It rents cranes ranging from 15 to 250 tons in weight. BianLian posted American Crane Rental to its data leak site on June 23rd, claiming to have stolen 249GB of data, including accounting and project data, files from user PCs, subcontractor, and vendor information, and more. It has threatened to publish all stolen data by July 5th if American Crane Rentals fails to pay the ransom.

BianLian's Infamous Cybercriminal Activities

BianLian is an infamous cybercriminal organization involved in the development and deployment of ransomware. Since June 2022, they have targeted various critical infrastructure sectors in the United States. Additionally, they have extended their attacks to include Australian critical infrastructure sectors, as well as professional services and property development domains.

Method of Attack

To gain unauthorized access to their victims' systems, the group exploits valid Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) credentials. They employ open-source tools and command-line scripts to carry out reconnaissance and gather credentials. Victim data is then extracted using File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Rclone, or Mega.

Extortion Tactics

Subsequently, the BianLian group proceeds to extort money from their victims by threatening to expose the obtained data unless a payment is made. Initially, the group utilized a double-extortion approach, which involved encrypting victims' systems after data exfiltration. However, starting around January 2023, they primarily focused on data exfiltration-based extortion.