PLEASE_READ_ME has reportedly been active since January 2020, attacking weak credentials on internet-facing MySQL servers.
Since then, Guardicore Global Sensors Network (GGSN) reported 92 attacks, with numbers rising sharply in October. According to Guardicore researchers, the ransomware attacks originated from 11 different IP addresses, most of which were found to be located in the UK and Ireland.
The ransomware campaign is untargeted, meaning that it attempts to infect any of the five million MySQL servers which are internet-facing. Hackers exploit weak credentials and are able to re-access the network by leaving a backdoor user on the database for persistence.
Guardicore Labs researchers managed to discover two different variants during the lifetime of this campaign. The first, which lasted from January to the end of November, saw attackers leaving their victims a ransom note with their wallet address, the amount of Bitcoin to pay, as well as an email address for technical support, with 10 days being given to make the payment.