The Conti ransomware affiliate program appears to have altered its business plan recently. Organizations infected with Conti’s malware who refuse to negotiate a ransom payment are added to Conti’s victim shaming blog, where confidential files stolen from victims may be published or sold. But sometime over the past 48 hours, the cybercriminal syndicate updated its victim shaming blog to indicate that it is now selling access to many of the organizations it has hacked.
“We are looking for a buyer to access the network of this organization and sell data from their network,” reads the confusingly worded message inserted into multiple recent victim listings on Conti’s shaming blog.
It’s unclear what prompted the changes, or what Conti hopes to gain from the move. It’s also not obvious why they would advertise having hacked into companies if they plan on selling that access to extract sensitive data going forward. Conti did not respond to requests for comment.