The LockBit Ransomware Attack on Towell Group

The LockBit ransomware gang has attacked Towell Group. The Towell Group is a prominent and diversified business conglomerate based in the Sultanate of Oman. Dating back to 1866, the Towell Group has evolved into one of the leading corporate entities in the region. The group operates across a wide range of industries, including automotive, engineering, construction, retail, hospitality, and healthcare.

LockBit posted the Towell Group to its data leak site on June 6th, threatening to publish all stolen data by June 26th if the organization failed to cooperate. The ransomware has since leaked all stolen data.

Background on LockBit

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.

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. LockBit is a well-run affiliate program and has an excellent reputation amongst the affiliate (attacker) community for the platform's maturity and 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.