Ransomware hackers used AI images, Microsoft flaw in campaign

The Exotic Lily group sent over 5,000 malicious emails a day, Google observed, to as many as 650 organisations around the world, often leveraging a flaw in MSHTML, a proprietary browser engine for Windows. — Identity theft photo created by standret - www.freepik.com

A group of ransomware hackers used a variety of techniques to try breaching hundreds of companies last year, exploiting a vulnerability in Microsoft Corp’s Windows and using artificial intelligence technology to create fake LinkedIn profiles, Alphabet Inc’s Google found.

The group, which Google refers to as Exotic Lily in research published March 17, is known as an initial access broker. Such groups specialise at breaking into corporate computer networks, and then providing that access to other cybercriminal syndicates that deploy malware that locks computers and demands a ransom.