NoEscape Confirmed Ransomware Attack Against McKeag & Co Solicitors

McKeag & Co are a long established legal practice located in Newcastle upon Tyne in the North East of England, offering a wide range of legal services. NoEscape – assessed to be a spinoff of the disbanded Avaddon gang - emerged in May of 2023 and operates as a Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) and emerged with variants for targeting both Windows, Linux and VMware ESXi systems.

NoEscape provides affiliates with 24/7 technical support, communications, negotiation assistance, as well as an automated RaaS platform update feature. Having just recently emerged, NoEscape has rapidly become one of the more prolific attack groups, with attack volume escalating significantly in the second quarter of 2023. IT is unclear how high the typical NoEscape ransom demands tend to be, but it has been observed that profit sharing with affiliates is on par or even more attractive than other groups with ransoms over $3 million netting 90/10 split with affiliates taking the lion’s share.

NoEscape is written in C++ and is relatively unique in the space in that the developers opted to build the RaaS platform from scratch rather than rely on code re-use from other ransomware variants. NoEscape ransomware payloads support multiple encryption options ranging from extra fast to extra strong encryption and leverages RSA and ChaCHA20 encryption algorithms with a single key for all impacted files for faster decryption of a ransom is paid.

NoEscape can operate in safe mode to bypass security tools, terminates processes, erases VSS shadow copies and system back-ups to thwart recovery efforts, and abuses Windows Restart Manager to circumvent processes not terminated. NoEscape operations target a wide array of industry verticals with a focus on Professional Services, Manufacturing, Information Technology and Healthcare.

NoEscape offers its RaaS platform to affiliate attackers and operations typically include data exfiltration or other actions to be leveraged in double extortion schemes such as a denial-of-service option for a hefty additional fee to the affiliate. NoEscape maintains a TOR-based leaks site to name-and-shame victims.