The financially motivated threat actor known as Storm-0501 has been observed refining its tactics to conduct data exfiltration and extortion attacks targeting cloud environments.

“Unlike traditional on-premises ransomware, where the threat actor typically deploys malware to encrypt critical files across endpoints within the compromised network and then negotiates for a decryption key, cloud-based ransomware introduces a fundamental shift,” the Microsoft Threat Intelligence team said in a report shared with The Hacker News.

“Leveraging cloud-native capabilities, Storm-0501 rapidly exfiltrates large volumes of data, destroys data and backups within the victim environment, and demands ransom — all without relying on traditional malware deployment.”