Users of popular email services such as Microsoft’s Outlook and Google’s Gmail could be subject to cyberattacks by Medusa, a ransomware cybercriminal business model that has affected more than 300 targets since February in a number of sectors, including technology, legal, medical, and manufacturing, the FBI said.

Medusa, which was first identified in June 2021, was spotted as recently as last month, according to an advisory released March 12 by the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, The Hill reported Wednesday.

“Both Medusa developers and affiliates — referred to as ‘Medusa actors’ in this advisory — employ a double extortion model, where they encrypt victim data and threaten to publicly release exfiltrated data if a ransom is not paid,” the advisory stated.

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