Karakurt Ransomware Gang Attacks McAlester Regional Health Center

The Karakurt ransomware gang has attacked McAlester Regional Health Center. McAlester Regional Health Center (MRHC) is a medical facility located in McAlester, Oklahoma, United States. Established to serve the healthcare needs of the local community and the surrounding region, MRHC provides a range of medical services and care options.

Karakurt posted McAlester Regional Health Center to its data leak site on July 28th, claiming to have stolen 166GB of medical information, DNA tests, financial data, and more. Karakurt practices a unique style of the ransomware model in that they do not encrypt compromised machines or files but instead focus on data exfiltration and then demand a ransom payment with the threat to leak or sell the stolen data.

Impact and Ransom Demands

While Karakurt had a lower volume of attacks in 2022 than some of its peers, the attacks were extremely effective and yielded high ransom payments. Karakurt ransom demands have ranged widely from $25,000 to a whopping $10,000,000+ with strict payment deadlines.

Operational Tactics

Karakurt does not maintain a RaaS (Ransomware-as-a-Service) platform but has been assessed to be closely related to the defunct Conti ransomware syndicate. They have been observed deploying or abusing tools like Cobalt Strike, Mimikatz, AnyDesk, and other tools to elevate privileges and move laterally within a network.

Targeting Strategy

Karakurt is opportunistic and does not target specific sectors, industries, or types of victims and has likely automated some target selection based on ease of compromise by way of vulnerability exploits like Log4Shell, outdated VPN appliances, or through stolen VPN and RDP credentials.