Conti and Akira: Chained Together

Arctic Wolf Labs reports that Akira is a RaaS-operated ransomware group active since March 2023 that has compromised at least 63 organizations (about 80% SMBs), uses data exfiltration for double extortion, commonly gains access via compromised credentials (often where VPN MFA is not enabled), and that blockchain analysis links Akira ransom payments to Conti-affiliated wallets; the report assesses Akira as opportunistic and recommends security best practices such as enabling MFA.