Trigona
Trigona (canonical naming, also tracked by Trend Micro as Water Ungaw internally) is a Delphi-based Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) operation emerging October 2022 with binaries first observed June 2022 per Trend Micro Water Ungaw internal tracking + Ransomware Spotlight November 2023 analysis ("The Trigona ransomware, first tracked by Trend Micro as Water Ungaw, emerged in October 2022. However, binaries of the ransomware were first seen as early as June of the same year")
CryLock-offspring lineage attribution per Trend Micro ("Threat actors behind the group are known to be affiliated with CryLock due to their similarities in tactics, techniques, and procedures TTPs, ransom note file name, and email addresses used") + AhnLab ASEC April 2023 + 2024 + Arete February 2023 ManageEngine CVE-2021-40539 disclosure with circumstantial BlackCat linkage + SentinelOne In-Depth Analysis + Palo Alto Networks December 2022 + Bank Info Security + Bleeping Computer + The Record + GridInSoft + Anvilogic industry coverage.
Russian-aligned cybercrime ecosystem attribution via RAMP (Russian Anonymous Marketplace) forum network-access-broker collaboration consistent with broader Russian cybercrime ecosystem.
standalone cluster paralleling hunters_international + embargo + cactus in v0.1.160 2022-2025 post-takedown + emerging RaaS cell.
operational target profile Turkey (23.5%) + Philippines (19.6%) + Brazil (13.7%) + Germany + Thailand top 5 victimology per Trend Micro + United States + India + Israel + Italy secondary per The Record + signature government organizations 21.4% primary sector + manufacturing + finance + construction + agriculture + marketing + high-tech + healthcare + banking + education secondary sectors + 33 organizations compromised April-October 2023 per Trend Micro leak site analysis + poorly-managed externally-exposed MS-SQL servers signature initial access vector.
operational attack architecture: (1) cluster-defining Delphi programming language detection-evasion signature distinctive language choice for Windows ransomware development with Delphi-specific runtime library presence in memory dumps.
(2) cluster-defining CryLock-offspring lineage signature with shared TTPs + ransom note file name + email addresses establishing operator continuity from CryLock.
(3) cluster-defining MSSQL brute-force / dictionary attack initial access on poorly-managed exposed MS-SQL servers per AhnLab ASEC + Trend Micro April 2023 onward; (4) cluster-defining ManageEngine CVE-2021-40539 ServiceDesk Plus + ADSelfService Plus public-facing- application exploitation per Arete February 2023 with circumstantial BlackCat linkage (Trend Micro assessment of similarities as "circumstantial at best")
(5) signature Windows + Linux multi- platform capability with May 2023 Linux variant emergence.
(6) signature AES-256 + RSA-4112 OFB (Output Feedback) mode encryption with .locked file extension + how_to_decrypt.hta ransom note as valid HTA application + signature configuration data embedded with multiple AES-CBC encryption layers.
(7) cluster-defining Monero cryptocurrency payment preference + aggressive-deadline-intimidation tradecraft per SentinelOne with TOR-based payment portal + auth-key login from ransom note signature; (8) signature 20-50% affiliate revenue RaaS model per Trend Micro ("group positioned itself as running a lucrative scheme, launching global attacks and advertising revenues up to 20% to 50% for each successful attack")
(9) signature RAMP (Russian Anonymous Marketplace) forum network-access-broker collaboration for compromised-credentials sourcing consistent with Russian cybercrime ecosystem operational tradecraft.
(10) cluster-defining October 17, 2023 Ukrainian Cyber Alliance (UCA) takedown via Confluence CVE-2023-22515 exploitation by herm1t / Sean Townsend with complete infrastructure wipe ("Despite the efforts of their admins who changed passwords and shut down their infra facing the internet not TOR we were able to maintain persistent access to infra, exfiltrated all the data and wiped the servers. It included administration panel, landing page for victims, blog, leaks site, monero hot wallets, dev environment and internal team server with Rocket Chat, Confluence and Jira")
(11) signature Storm-0062 / DarkShadow / Oro0lxy adjacent Confluence CVE-2023-22515 zero-day exploitation pattern with same CVE used by Chinese APT cluster + Ukrainian hacktivist counter-cybercrime operations.
(12) cluster-defining AhnLab ASEC 2024 Mimic ransomware adoption operator-continuity signature post-UCA- takedown ("the threat actor's email address saved in the ransom note, it can be confirmed that the recently detected Trigona ransomware's threat actor is the same attacker responsible for previous cases... it is presumed that the Trigona ransomware threat actor is also using Mimic in their attacks") with Mimic exploiting Everything search tool for file-search acceleration.
(13) signature /!autorun + /!lan + /erase + /full command-line arguments + Registry Run keys persistence + SMB spreading toggleable capability + Mimikatz credential dumper tradecraft.
cluster fills the October-2022- emergence + June-2022-early-samples + Water-Ungaw- tracking + Delphi-language + CryLock-offspring + MSSQL-brute-force + ManageEngine-CVE-2021-40539 + Mimic-adoption-post-UCA + AES-256-RSA-4112-OFB + .locked + Monero-aggressive-deadline + UCA-October- 17-2023-Confluence-CVE-2023-22515-takedown + 33- organizations-compromised + Turkey-Philippines- Brazil-Germany-Thailand-victimology + RAMP-network- access-broker-collaboration position in 2022-2025 post-takedown + emerging RaaS cell.
canonical illustration of October 2022 Delphi-based RaaS + CryLock-offspring lineage + MSSQL brute-force + ManageEngine CVE-2021-40539 exploitation + multi- platform Windows + Linux variants + Monero aggressive-deadline tradecraft + 20-50% affiliate revenue RaaS + UCA October 17 2023 Confluence CVE-2023-22515 takedown + Mimic-ransomware-operator- continuity post-takedown evidence + counter- cybercrime-via-hacktivism parallel pattern cited in essentially all subsequent emerging RaaS + counter-cybercrime industry analyses through 2022- 2026 period.