Snatch Ransomware Group Targets Spaulding Clinical

Snatch ransomware group took responsibility for an attack on Spaulding Clinical. No further information was disclosed on what data was compromised or on the impact of the attack. Spaulding Clinical was founded in 2007 and quickly became a recognizable name in clinical pharmacology, biostatistics, and clinical data management.

Background of Snatch Ransomware

Snatch is a RaaS first emerged way back in 2018 but did not become significantly active until 2021. Snatch can evade security tools and deletes Volume Shadow Copies to prevent rollbacks and any local Windows backups to thwart recovery. There has also been a Linux version observed.

Attack Volume and Ransom Demands

Snatch attack volume has been modest compared to leading ransomware operators but is on pace to increase about 50% in 2023 compared to 2022 levels. Snatch ransom demands are relatively low compared to leading ransomware operators, ranging from several thousand to tens of thousands of dollars.

Technical Details of Snatch

Snatch is written in Go and is somewhat unique in that the ransomware reboots in safe mode to make sure the security tools are not running. Persistence and privilege escalation are not byproducts of the reboot. Snatch abuses legitimate tools like Process Hacker, Uninstaller, IObit, BCDEDIT, PowerTool, and PsExec. Snatch deletes Volume Shadow Copies to prevent encryption rollbacks.

Targeting Strategy

Snatch targeting varies widely based on their affiliates preferences. Snatch is one of the more traditional RaaS platforms, where most of the targeting and attack sequence structure is left to the individual affiliates, including whether to exfiltrate data for double extortion.