VIKING SPIDER

First seen
2020-02-01 00:00:00
Primary motivation
financial-gain
Sophistication
intermediate
Resource level
organization
Actor type
criminal
Profile updated
2026-07-07 11:50:52

Targeted industries: energy-and-utilities financial-services professional-services retail-and-hospitality

Context

VIKING SPIDER is the criminal group behind the development and distribution of Ragnar Locker ransomware. While public reporting indicates the group began threatening to leak victim data in February 2020, a DLS was not observed until April 2020. The DLS is hosted on Tor, and similar to other actors, proof of data exfiltration is provided before the stolen data is fully leaked. It was also noted that On Dec. 22, 2020, a new post made to MountLocker ransomware’s Tor-hosted DLS was titled 'Cartel News' and included details of a victim of VIKING SPIDER’s Ragnar Locker

Reports & references

  • CrowdStrike — Double Trouble Ransomware Data Leak Extortion Part 1 (report)
  • analyst1.com — Ransom Mafia Analysis Of The World%E2%80%99S First Ransomware Cartel (report)
  • CrowdStrike — Report2021Gtr (report)
  • CrowdStrike — Double Trouble Ransomware Data Leak Extortion Part 2 (report)
  • analyst1.com — Ransom Mafia Analysis Of The Worlds First Ransomware Cartel (report)

External references