The LockBit Ransomware Gang's Attack on Atlanta Technical College

The LockBit ransomware gang has attacked Atlanta Technical College. Atlanta Technical College is a public, two-year community and technical college located in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The college is part of the Technical College System of Georgia and offers a range of technical and vocational programs designed to prepare students for the workforce. LockBit posted Atlanta Technical College to its data leak site on October 10th, threatening to publish all stolen data by October 14th if the organization fails to pay an unspecified ransom.

LockBit Ransomware: A Growing Threat

LockBit is a RaaS (Ransomware-as-a-Service) that has been active since 2019 and is enabled with security tool evasion capabilities and an extremely fast encryption speed. LockBit is noted for using a triple extortion model where the victim may also be asked to purchase their sensitive information in addition to paying the ransom demand for decrypting systems. LockBit employs publicly available file sharing services and a custom tool dubbed Stealbit for data exfiltration.

LockBit was by far the most active attack group in 2022 and continued to be one of the top attack groups in Q1 of 2023, despite being bested in sheer volume by the Cl0p ransomware gang who surged in Q1.‍ LockBit demanded ransoms in excess of $50 million in 2022. The group continues to improve their RaaS platform and introduced LockBit 3.0 in June of 2022. The latest version incorporates advanced anti-analysis features and is a threat to both Windows and Linux systems.

Technical Details of LockBit 3.0

LockBit 3.0 is modular and configured with multiple execution options that direct the behavior of the ransomware on the affected systems. LockBit employs a custom Salsa20 algorithm to encrypt files. LockBit takes advantage of remote desktop protocol (RDP) exploitation for most infections, and spreads on the network by way of Group Policy Objects and PsExec using the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol.

LockBit tends to target larger enterprises across any industry vertical with the ability to pay high ransom demands, but also tends to favor Healthcare targets. LockBit a very well-run affiliate program and a great reputation amongst the affiliate (attacker) community for the maturity of the platform as well as for offering high payouts of as much as 75% of the attack proceeds. LockBit is known to employ multiple extortion techniques including data exfiltration to compel payment.