What is data exfiltration?

For the past few years, various organizations are facing dangerous cyber attacks called Ransomware. Such attackers steal victims' data and demand cryptocurrency as ransom. thanks to poor security policies, untested backups, etc., organizations became victims of such attacks due to insensitivity. Not listening to your organization's cyber security has been a boon for ransomware attackers around the world.

Due to this, there's a continuous increase in ransomware attacks. But thanks to the falling value of cryptocurrency for some time, the worth of the ransom demanded after the attack has decreased. additionally, to this, thanks to the vigilance shown by organizations for their security, ransomware attacks have also been affected.

This forced the attackers to seek another way for the attack and ransom. Meanwhile, differently, they are looking for 'data exfiltration'. it's also called Xfill. it's like a kind of espionage, which is now affecting various organizations worldwide.

What is exfiltration?

In general, this word is employed by the army. In military activities, the work of evacuating the troops from a place controlled by the enemy is named exfiltration. within the field of cyber security, the act of cyber attackers stealing data from personal or corporate devices, like computers and mobile phones, through various cyber attack methods is named data exfiltration.

In the last few days, organizations are getting a victim of exfiltration. some months ago, an excessive amount of data was stolen from Nvidia, Microsoft, and other companies. This was a much bigger attack than a ransomware attack. A hacker group called Lapsus released the ASCII text file of Nvidia's Deep Learning Super Sampling Resource.

In general terms, data exfiltration is the unauthorized theft or transfer of data from a computer or device.

It steals sensitive data of the organization and makes it public. In data exfiltration, the attacker doesn't use an encrypted system as in a ransomware attack. Attackers can use encryption to cover their tracking. But after data theft, keeping it a secret and demanding ransom from the victim doesn't work.

It directly exposes data which will lead to financial loss or simply theft of information. This information is often used for any purpose.

How is exfiltration different from ransomware?

In a ransomware attack, the attacker installs malicious software on the target computer to realize access to sensitive data and keep it encrypted. then, after receiving the quantity of ransom they asked for, they return the info to the relevant organization. Thus, they take cryptocurrency as ransom. Since cryptocurrency transactions are supported by blockchain, it prevents attackers from tracking them.

In Ransomware, the attacker doesn't disclose the stolen data. it's the intention of making more money than causing loss to the company. to make quick money like this, sometimes attackers threaten to release data or release some data.

Likewise, ransomware is usually automated. That is, the attacker doesn't spend a lot of time stealing data and waiting for it. He installs malicious software one after the opposite on the device of the target organization.

In exfiltration, data is stolen in the same way as in ransomware, but it takes more control of sensitive data such as social security numbers, MasterCard details, passwords, personal data, and phone numbers.

Data are often stolen in two ways. the primary is that the attacker is present and steals data from the device, and therefore the second is stealing data through automated software using malware like ransomware. But the stolen data is formed public in this way. It doesn't mean asking for ransom only from the related organizations. Attackers knowingly sell such data on dark web forums.

This type of attack is done to bring out the confidential data of a company or to do other things that harm the company. For this, the ransom amount isn't a big thing. Read More