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NCSC-TAD-2403-001
Reference No.: NCSC-TAD-2403-001CVSS 0
GhostLocker 2.0 Ransomware Campaign Targets Organizations Across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia
- Threat Type:
- N/A
- TLP:
- CLEAR
- CVE:
- N/A
Overview
GhostLocker is a ransomware operation that has targeted organizations across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, impacting sectors including government, healthcare, education, technology, manufacturing, and critical infrastructure. The group conducts double-extortion attacks by stealing sensitive data before encrypting victim systems and subsequently threatening to publish the stolen information if ransom demands are not met. Researchers observed that GhostLocker 2.0 expanded its victim base and operational capabilities, leveraging ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) techniques and modern extortion methods to increase the impact of its attacks against organizations in the affected regions.
Mitigation and Immediate Actions
- 01
Isolate infected systems immediately to prevent ransomware propagation.
- 02
Identify and remove unauthorized access mechanisms and persistence artifacts.
- 03
Reset compromised credentials and review privileged account activity.
- 04
Monitor for data exfiltration and unauthorized access to sensitive files.
- 05
Restrict remote administration access and enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA).
- 06
Maintain offline, tested backups to support recovery operations.
- 07
Make sure endpoint detection and response (EDR) deployed across critical assets.
- 08
Monitor for unusual encryption activity, large data transfers, and lateral movement behavior.
References
Impacted Sectors
- Government Services
- Health Services
- Education
- Critical Industry
- ICT
- Energy

