LockBit Ransomware Gang Attacks the Automobile & Touring Club of the UAE

The LockBit ransomware gang has attacked the Automobile & Touring Club of the UAE (ATCUAE). The Automobile & Touring Club of the UAE (ATCUAE) is the only officially nominated representative of the FIA, the motorsport world governing body, in the UAE. It is headquartered in Abu Dhabi. LockBit posted the Automobile & Touring Club of the UAE (ATCUAE) to its data leak site on January 16th, threatening to publish all stolen data by February 4th if the organization failed to respond. The ransomware gang has not leaked any stolen data, suggesting that Automobile & Touring Club of the UAE (ATCUAE) paid the ransom.

LockBit's Operations and Evolution

LockBit 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. The group continues to improve its attack platform and introduced LockBit in June of 2022, which bore some similarities to the BlackMatter ransomware. The latest version incorporates advanced anti-analysis features and is a threat to both Windows and Linux systems.

Technical Details of LockBit Ransomware

LockBit employs a Base64-encoded hash and an RSA public key in its configuration and hashes it with MD5. LockBit also created its own bug bounty program.