As a follow-up to last week’s post on the importance of due diligence regarding high-risk vendors’ security practices, Blackbaud, a global company providing financial and fundraising technology to not-for-profit entities, notified its customers late last week that it was the victim of a ransomware attack in mid-May. Blackbaud offers a number of products to its … Continue Reading
On July 10, 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission, through its Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE), issued a warning to advisors and broker-dealers to “immediately” review their cybersecurity controls to prevent and respond to an increase in phishing campaigns and ransomware attacks. The Risk Alert advises that the OCIE has “observed an apparent … Continue Reading
It doesn’t matter in which state you are located, how many patients you treat, what kind of medicine you practice or how many employees you have, if you are a health care provider, you are being targeted and hackers are successful in victimizing you. That’s my take on the recent Becker’s Health IT article that … Continue Reading
The Office of Court Administration in Texas (OCA) confirmed late last week that it is the victim of a ransomware attack. The OCA stated that it would not pay the ransom. “OCA was able to catch the ransomware and limit its impact, and will not pay any ransom…Work continues to bring all judicial resources and … Continue Reading
There have been numerous examples of how hackers can get hold of sensitive and deeply personal information and use it against individuals to embarrass and extort them into sending money or compromising pictures to the hackers to prevent the information from being posted on the web. These examples include cyberbullying, online love scams, blackmail through … Continue Reading
In a growing trend, pharmaceutical company ExecuPharm became the victim of a ransomware attack on March 13, 2020, by the CLOP ransomware group, which exfiltrated its data and then posted it on the Internet. Apparently, ExecuPharm didn’t pay the ransom, and then paid the price anyway by having its data compromised and posted by the … Continue Reading
Some good news in the ransomware world, which is so rare these days. The Shade (Troldesh) ransomware group has retired and is shutting down. When do you ever hear that a ransomware group is shutting down? According to reports, Shade has publicly announced that it is retiring (apparently it has made enough money to do … Continue Reading
The criminals behind the Maze ransomware [view recent related posts here and here] have gone big and hit Cognizant, one of the largest technology consulting companies in the U.S., with its nasty ransomware. Cognizant stated on its website that it “can confirm that a security incident involving our internal systems, and causing service disruptions for … Continue Reading
The hackers behind the Sodinokibi/REvil ransomware have reportedly switched their demands for payment from Bitcoin or Ethereum to Monero cryptocurrency to try to prevent law enforcement from tracking payments. The hackers reportedly advertised the switch in a posting to an online hacker and malware forum, and admitted that the switch from Bitcoin to Monero is … Continue Reading
Interpol has issued an alert to global law enforcement agencies about the increased risk of ransomware attacks on hospitals, health care providers and other organizations on the front line of response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Purple Notice, issued to all 194 member countries, notified them that Interpol’s Cybercrime Threat Response team has detected a … Continue Reading
On April 1, 2020, Microsoft issued a specific warning to health care entities alerting them that they are at particular risk during the COVID-19 crisis, as threat actors are using the pandemic to take advantage of vulnerabilities while hospitals are focused on responding to the crisis. According to Microsoft “[D]uring this time of crisis, as … Continue Reading
Despite the fact that the hackers behind Maze ransomware previously promised not to hit medical organizations during the coronavirus pandemic, it recently attacked a British medical lab that is slated to test COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic. The Maze hackers previously said publicly that it would “stop all activity versus all kinds of medical organizations … Continue Reading
Another city—Durham, North Carolina—has become the victim of a ransomware attack stemming from a Russian hacker group following a successful phishing scheme. After falling victim to the ransomware attack last weekend, the city shut down its network, including disabling access to the network by the Durham Police Department, the Sheriff’s Office and the communications center. … Continue Reading
Two Las Vegas casinos’ networks were down over the past week, with posted signs saying “Cash Only” throughout the casinos after a suspected ransomware attack. Electronic slot machines were silent as the casinos reacted to the security incident. The Nevada State Gaming Control Board was aware of the situation and disclosed that it is monitoring … Continue Reading
Scammers always go back to the good old scams, even when they are making bundles on new scams. Although our lives have been consumed of late with an onslaught of ransomware attacks, this past week, we have seen an uptick in good old wire fraud schemes. The uptick is so significant that it warrants a … Continue Reading
Criminal minds are creative, and new ransomware strains show just how creative cyber-attackers can be. A new strain of ransomware, dubbed Ransomwared, requests a different kind of payment from the victim than the typical bitcoin request. Instead of paying for the decryption of data, or to prevent cyber-attackers from releasing private photos they have obtained … Continue Reading
Confirming what we are seeing in the field, cybersecurity firm Cybersecurity Ventures has predicted that, globally, businesses in 2021 will fall victim to a ransomware attack every 11 seconds, down from every 14 seconds in 2019. That figure is based on historical cybercrime figures. It is estimated that the cost of ransomware to businesses will … Continue Reading
There’s nothing worse than paying criminals. And paying a ransom for data is just that—paying criminals for a criminal act. All you get out of the payment is access to your data. It doesn’t fix the vulnerability or the root problem. Let the record reflect that the FBI does not recommend paying ransoms to cyber … Continue Reading
A new report published by Coveware concludes that companies hit with ransomware attacks spend an average of 16 days recovering from the attack. Think about being offline and unable to do business for 16 business days. It is extremely disruptive and costly. It takes larger organizations longer to recover than smaller ones, and larger organizations … Continue Reading
I am on vacation this week in beautiful Jackson Hole. The skiing is epic, the restaurants amazing, 1921 silver dollars inlaid in the tops of two bars, elk and moose abound, and I’ve had a sighting of several coyotes, a badger, and owls. Sounds idyllic. It is for the most part, except for ransomware attacks. … Continue Reading
It’s getting difficult to keep up with the jargon of all of the new digital scams. The SaaSes in the beginning became regular business terms, such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), and Business Processes-as-a-Service (BPaaS). But then the criminal enterprises came up with Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS), Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) and now Crime-as-a-Service (CaaS). A new Crime-as-a-Service offering is targeting … Continue Reading
Just hours after the shooting incident at the Pensacola Air Station last week, city officials in Pensacola discovered that the city was the victim of a ransomware attack. Many of the city’s computer systems were affected and were disconnected from the internet. City officials reported that all offices were open and that emergency services, including … Continue Reading
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards activated the State’s cybersecurity team recently after several State offices’ computers started acting strangely. The IT team identified an intrusion of Ryuk ransomware and which programs were affected, and shut down computers to avoid spread of the infection. During the outage, some state offices had no access to email, internet … Continue Reading
Security researchers Intezer and IBM X-Force have identified a new ransomware that is seriously vicious. It’s PureLocker—named because it is programmed in PureBasic language, which is apparently unusual. The scary thing about this ransomware being written in PureBasic programming language is that it can target different platforms and is transferable between different operating systems, including … Continue Reading
