As ransomware becomes more common, I’m seeing more discussions about the ethics of paying the ransom. Here’s one more contribution to that issue: a research paper that the insurance industry is hurting more than it’s helping. However, the most pressing challenge currently facing the industry is ransomware. Although it is a societal problem, cyber insurers … Read More “Insurance and Ransomware” »
Category: ransomware
Auto Added by WPeMatico
The New York Times has a long story on the DarkSide ransomware gang. A glimpse into DarkSide’s secret communications in the months leading up to the Colonial Pipeline attack reveals a criminal operation on the rise, pulling in millions of dollars in ransom payments each month. DarkSide offers what is known as “ransomware as a … Read More “The DarkSide Ransomware Gang” »
Apostle seems to be a new strain of malware that destroys data. In a post published Tuesday, SentinelOne researchers said they assessed with high confidence that based on the code and the servers Apostle reported to, the malware was being used by a newly discovered group with ties to the Iranian government. While a ransomware … Read More “New Disk Wiping Malware Targets Israel” »
This seems to be a new tactic: Emsisoft has identified two distinct tactics. In the first, hackers encrypt data with ransomware A and then re-encrypt that data with ransomware B. The other path involves what Emsisoft calls a “side-by-side encryption” attack, in which attacks encrypt some of an organization’s systems with ransomware A and others … Read More “Double-Encrypting Ransomware” »
A lot of Russian malware — the malware that targeted the Colonial Pipeline, for example — won’t install on computers with a Cyrillic keyboard installed. Brian Krebs wonders if this could be a useful defense: In Russia, for example, authorities there generally will not initiate a cybercrime investigation against one of their own unless a … Read More “Adding a Russian Keyboard to Protect against Ransomware” »
This is a major story: a probably Russian cybercrime group called DarkSide shut down the Colonial Pipeline in a ransomware attack. The pipeline supplies much of the East Coast. This is the new and improved ransomware attack: the hackers stole nearly 100 gig of data, and are threatening to publish it. The White House has … Read More “Ransomware Shuts Down US Pipeline” »
There’s a new ransomware for the Mac called ThiefQuest or EvilQuest. It’s hard to get infected: For your Mac to become infected, you would need to torrent a compromised installer and then dismiss a series of warnings from Apple in order to run it. It’s a good reminder to get your software from trustworthy sources, … Read More “ThiefQuest Ransomware for the Mac” »
EKANS is a new ransomware that targets industrial control systems: But EKANS also uses another trick to ratchet up the pain: It’s designed to terminate 64 different software processes on victim computers, including many that are specific to industrial control systems. That allows it to then encrypt the data that those control system programs interact … Read More “New Ransomware Targets Industrial Control Systems” »
The Wall Street Journal has a story about how two people were identified as the perpetrators of a ransomware scheme. They were found because — as generally happens — they made mistakes covering their tracks. They were investigated because they had the bad luck of locking up Washington, DC’s video surveillance cameras a week before … Read More “Identifying and Arresting Ransomware Criminals” »
ProPublica is reporting on companies that pretend to recover data locked up by ransomware, but just secretly pay the hackers and then mark up the cost to the victims. Powered by WPeMatico