After disrupting lots of businesses and making money, Maze ransomware has now announced its departure. However, there won’t be a gap as other ransomware are ready to fill in.
Maze Ransomware Departure
According to Bleeping Computer, the infamous Maze ransomware has announced to shut down its operations.
Maze has planned this departure after waging ransomware attacks on numerous services since its appearance in May 2019. Some prominent Maze targets include LG Electronics, Pitney Bowes, Xerox, City of Pensacola, and more.
After they become very active in November 2019, the ransomware even started dumping stolen data where the targets failed to pay the ransom or downplayed the incident.
However, for the past six weeks, the ransomware began shutting down its operations. Bleeping Computer witnessed how the ransomware gang began clearing up their site.
It’s not yet confirmed whether the gang will also release the decryption keys, as most ransomware operations do at departures.
Egregor, Sekhmet To Replace Maze
While Maze is leaving, another ransomware Egregor is ready to fill the vacancy.
Egregor is a new ransomware that appeared in September 2020 and has since been really active. Their most recent victims include Barnes & Noble, about which Egregor confirmed whilst sharing part of stolen files.
However, Egregor seems to have been based on the same software as Maze and Sekhmet (another similar ransomware). In fact, both Egregor and Sekhmet share numerous similarities with each other as well as with Maze.
Hence, it seems the departure is only of the Maze ransomware in itself as its sister copies are already deployed.
It isn’t clear whether the ransomware gang that operated Maze is behind Egregor and Sekhmet. Or, the two are operated by a different gang that collaborated with Maze operators.
The most recent ransomware departure before Maze was that of Gandcrab. Shortly after, Sodinobiki or the REvil ransomware took its place.
