November 2, 2021

The Cring ransomware has continued to attack organizations with aging ColdFusion servers and VPNs.

According to Sophos researchers, the group that uses Cring ransomware consists of the same hackers in Belarus and Ukraine who use automated tools to break into servers of an unnamed company in the service sector.

The Sophos researchers went on to explain how the ransomware gang operated by exploiting a vulnerability in an 11-year-old installation of Adobe ColdFusion 9 to remotely take control of a ColdFusion server.

According to Sophos, the hackers used their automated tools to scan 9,000 access routes into the company’s systems within 75 seconds and then exploited a vulnerability in the outdated Adobe program that gave them access to files from servers that were not supposed to be publicly accessible.

During the attack, the attackers were able to access timesheets and payroll entry data before cracking the Internet-facing server within minutes, after which the ransomware was successfully executed 72 hours later.

For more information, read the original story in ZDNet.