Staying current with Microsoft’s monthly patches is challenging, yet critical for one’s cybersecurity program. This week, Microsoft’s November Patch Tuesday released 55 patches, six of which were categorized as “critical,” four were previously disclosed (which means that cyber criminals may already be exploiting them), and two are being exploited now. Plugging all of these vulnerabilities
cyber criminals
FBI Issues Cyber-Attack Alert Against Tokyo Olympics Service Providers
On July 19, 2021, the Federal Bureau of Investigations issued a Private Industry Notification to service providers and “entities associated with the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics that cyber actors who wish to disrupt the event could use distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, ransomware, social engineering, phishing campaigns, or insider threats to block or disrupt…
Dealing with Two Schoolyard Bullies: Schools Are Forced to Contend with Cyber-attacks While Also Trying to Manage Covid-19 Crisis
Criminals are apparently not taking any time off during this pandemic, and in fact by all accounts have increased their attacks, particularly targeting entities whose attention is diverted to dealing with the fallout of the Covid-19 crisis. In particular, educational institutions across the country have faced a recent onslaught of ransomware attacks, often crippling an…
New York Department of Financial Services Issues Report on Recent Twitter Hack
You probably heard about the recent hack of Twitter accounts that took place on July 15, 2020. The hackers took over several prominent Twitter accounts, which resulted in a scam that netted over $118,000 in bitcoin for the hackers. One of the most startling things about the cyberattack was that it was led by a…
Privacy Tip #256 – COVID-19 Scams Continue to Plague U.S. Public
It has been widely reported that hackers are taking advantage of the pandemic to perpetrate scams and frauds. We have seen attacks against workers of companies through phishing emails that include an attachment or link offering information or access to specialized treatment for COVID-19 to lure people to click on them. Once they click on…
OCR Warns of Cyber Extortion and Provides Checklist
In its January newsletter, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) focused on cyber extortion, which it stated has “risen steadily over the past couple of years and continue to be a major source of disruption for many organizations.” Since the health care industry has been the target of cyber extortion attacks, the OCR is…