The BianLian Extortion Gang's Attack on CMC Marine

The BianLian extortion gang has attacked CMC Marine. CMC Marine is a stabilizing and control systems manufacturer for yachts and superyachts. It is headquartered in Poole, England. BianLian posted CMC Marine to its data leak site on July 29th, claiming to have stolen 2TB of HR, accounting, financial, personal, and business data.

BianLian: A Notorious Cybercriminal Organization

BianLian is an infamous cybercriminal organization involved in data extortion. 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.