The Cactus Ransomware Gang's Attack on Marfrig Global Foods

The Cactus ransomware gang has attacked Marfrig Global Foods. Marfrig Global Foods is a Brazilian multinational company that specializes in the production and distribution of meat and meat-related products. Founded in 2000, Marfrig has grown to become one of the world's leading meat processing and beef production companies. The company is headquartered in São Paulo, Brazil, and it operates in various countries around the world.

Cactus posted Marfrig Global Foods to its data leak site on September 5th but provided no further details. Cactus has been in operation since at least March 2023. Cactus has been observed employing known vulnerabilities within VPN appliances to initiate an initial breach. Once gaining entry to the network, Cactus operators engage in activities such as enumerating local and network user accounts and identifying accessible endpoints. They then proceed to generate new user accounts and utilize custom scripts for the automated rollout and activation of the ransomware encryptor through scheduled tasks.

It is noteworthy that the ransomware encryptor utilized by Cactus exhibits a unique characteristic – it necessitates a decryption key for the execution of the binary, likely implemented to evade detection by anti-virus software. This decryption key is concealed within a file containing random text named ntuser.dat, which is loaded through a scheduled task.