A newly identified threat group, Crimson Collective, has been targeting Amazon Web Services (AWS) environments to steal data and extort organizations. The group has claimed responsibility for the recent Red Hat breach, asserting that they exfiltrated 570 GB of data from thousands of private GitLab repositories. Following the breach, Crimson Collective partnered with Scattered Lapsus Hunters to increase pressure on victims and accelerate ransom demands. Security researchers at Rapid7 report that the attackers exploit long-term AWS access keys and use open-source tools like TruffleHog to locate exposed credentials. Once inside, they create new IAM users, assign ‘AdministratorAccess’ policies, and use these elevated privileges to enumerate cloud assets—including users, buckets, databases, and EC2 instances. They reset RDS passwords, create snapshots, and export them to S3 buckets via API calls for exfiltration. Additionally, they launch EC2 instances and attach EBS volumes under permissive security groups to facilitate large-scale data transfers. After completing data theft operations, Crimson Collective sends extortion notices via AWS Simple Email Service (SES), often from within the victim’s own environment. The group has been observed reusing IP addresses across incidents, aiding in attribution efforts. While their size and full capabilities remain unknown, their tactics mirror the sophistication of past ransomware and extortion campaigns targeting cloud infrastructure. To mitigate such threats, AWS urges customers to use short-term, least-privileged credentials and apply strict IAM policies. Organizations are also advised to scan for exposed secrets using tools like S3crets Scanner and closely monitor access logs for suspicious IAM activity.
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