Lazarus Group Picks a New Poison: Medusa Ransomware

Oh for fuck’s sake. Just when you thought it was safe to log off for the weekend, those North Korean wankers in the Lazarus Group have decided to stop fucking around with their usual supply chain bullshit and have jumped on the Medusa ransomware bandwagon like a bunch of script kiddies who just discovered Kali Linux in their mum’s basement.

Apparently, writing their own bloody malware is too much effort for a state-sponsored APT group these days. No, they’d rather lease some off-the-shelf ransomware-as-a-service shite from the dark web like they’re subscribing to goddamn Netflix. Medusa? More like Mediocre, if you ask me. But that hasn’t stopped these Kim Jong-Un fanboys from deploying it against critical infrastructure targets like they’re playing fucking Call of Duty with someone else’s network.

And where are the victims in all this? Probably clicking on attachments labeled “Invoice_FROM_NORTH_KOREA.pdf.exe” while wondering why their shitting antivirus didn’t save them from their own stupidity. Newsflash, Dave from Accounting: that Nigerian Prince didn’t relocate to Pyongyang, and no, you shouldn’t have given him your domain admin credentials for a “business opportunity” involving enriched uranium.

Now instead of the usual espionage crap, these bastards are encrypting entire networks and demanding crypto payments that’ll probably fund another missile test or another golden statue of their dear leader. Meanwhile, I’m stuck here at 3 AM restoring from tape backups because some C-suite executive thought “Password123!” was an acceptable substitute for actual fucking MFA, and clicked yes on every UAC prompt like he was playing whack-a-mole.

The worst part? This marks a strategic pivot that’s going to have every SOC analyst drinking themselves into oblivion trying to distinguish between yet another generic ransomware strain and actual nation-state activity backed by a goddamn nuclear power. As if my job wasn’t already a steaming pile of shit, now I get to explain to management why the North Koreans are treating our network infrastructure like their personal cryptocurrency mining farm and extortion racket.

You can read the full horror story here: https://www.darkreading.com/cyberattacks-data-breaches/lazarus-group-new-position-medusa-ransomware

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Speaking of state-sponsored disasters and electrical shocks to the system, reminds me of the time the PFY decided to “secure” the server room by wiring the door handle to the main UPS. Nothing says “authorized personnel only” quite like 240 volts through the palm of some idiot from HR who decided 2 AM was the perfect time to “check if the internet is working” by physically inspecting the routers. We didn’t lose any data, but we did lose a perfectly good pair of shoes, half the paint on the doorframe, and whatever dignity that moron had left. The smell of burnt polyester and the smoke coming out of his pocket where his mobile phone used to be still haunts my nightmares. The PFY got a raise.

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