Cisco Talos reports Kraken, a HelloKitty successor, is a cross-platform RaaS targeting Windows/ESXi. The malware uniquely benchmarks CPU/IO to optimize encryption speed and uses Cloudflared/SSHFS for persistence.

The Kraken ransomware (linked to HelloKitty) targets Windows, Linux, and ESXi using double extortion. It benchmarks system performance before encrypting to maximize damage.