Lockbit Ransomware Gang's Attack on Cortina Watch

The Lockbit ransomware gang has attacked Cortina Watch. Cortina Watch is one of the leading timepiece manufacturers in the Asia-Pacific region and employs 166 people. Lockbit, who demanded a $50,000 ransom, published all exfiltrated data on June 8th, suggesting Cortina Watch refused to pay.

LockBit's Operations

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.

2022: A Year of Dominance

LockBit is considered to have been the most active attack group in 2022 as other high-profile groups became less active and demanded ransoms of more than $50 million. 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.

Affiliate Program Success

LockBit is a very well-run affiliate program and has 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.

Extortion Techniques

LockBit is known to employ multiple extortion techniques, including data exfiltration, to compel payment.