After a ransomware attack on Monday forced Louisiana's government to take several servers and websites offline to prevent the malware from spreading, state officials spent Tuesday restoring online services.
Pemex, Mexico's state-run oil company, is refusing to pay attackers a $5 million ransom after a ransomware attack against the firm's administrative offices, according to news reports. The company is still attempting to recover.
Nearly four months after Capital One revealed a massive data breach, Michael Johnson, the bank's CISO, is being moved into an outside advisory role, and the company is scouting for a new security leader, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Ransomware continues to be a highly profitable cybercrime. Ransomware incident response firm Coveware reports that for the third quarter of this year, the average ransom amount paid was $41,198, a six-fold increase from the same period last year, driven by strains such as Ryuk and Sodinokibi.
For Russian-speaking hackers, ransomware used to be taboo. But GandCrab killed all such ethical qualms, democratizing ransomware-as-a-service, paving the way for new profit-sharing schemes such as Sodinokibi and driving a new generation of attackers to master advanced hacking skills, a new report finds.
A ransomware attack on the operator of non-profit clinics that serve the uninsured in St. Louis led to the breach of information on 152,000 patients, clinicians and employees. The organization says it did not pay a ransom, and IT experts have not been able to unlock the data encrypted by hackers.
Johannesburg has been hit with a ransomware attack that is crippling municipal services. City Power, an electric utility owned by the city that was hit by a similar attack in July - also was affected by the latest attack.
Ransomware is once again the most common illicit profit-making tool in online attackers' arsenal, police warn. Security firm Emsisoft says the most-seen strains in recent months include STOP, Dharma .cezar, Phobos, GlobeImposter 2.0 and Sodinokibi. Less widely seen Ryuk also continues to generate big profits.
Pitney Bowes says it was infected by file-encrypting malware that has affected online accounts and mailing products but that client data doesn't appear to be at risk. The postage meter maker says "all options" are being considered for recovery, meaning that it could pay a ransom.
The U.S. National Security Agency is the latest intelligence agency to warn that unpatched flaws in three vendors' VPN servers are being actively exploited by nation-state attackers. Security experts say such alerts, which are rare, are a clear sign that serious damage is being caused.
Organizations must take a number of critical steps to prepare a response to ransomware attacks before they hit, says Caleb Barlow, the new president and CEO of security consulting firm CynergisTek, who offers a guide.
More than 600 ransomware attacks pummelled local governments, schools districts and healthcare providers across the U.S. in the first three quarters of this year, according to a study by security firm Emsisoft. Meanwhile, the FBI this week issued a fresh warning about the threat.
A recent rash of ransomware attacks in the U.S. healthcare sector shows the serious disruptions these assaults can pose - including temporarily, or even permanently, stopping patient care.
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