Security Awareness Training Blog

Keeping You Informed. Keeping You Aware.
Stay on top of the latest in security including social engineering, ransomware and phishing attacks.

CryptoHost Ransomware Locks Files In A Password Protected RAR File

A new ransomware strain called CryptoHost was discovered, which claims that it encrypts your data and then demands a ransom of .33 bitcoins to get your files back (~140 USD at the current ...
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Hello mass spear phishing, meet ransomware!

Ransomware is now one of the greatest threats on the internet. In the past, IT Security firms used to monitor spear-phishing attacks by espionage outfits, but these techniques are now ...
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How Mattel Lost $3M In CEO Fraud Phishing

Great story by Erika Kinetz at the Associated Press. How Mattel was the victim of CEO Fraud using phishing and social engineering to trick one of their executives in China to make a $3 ...
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Maktub Ransomware Knows Where You Live

It's happening in the UK today, and you can expect it in America tomorrow [correction- it's already happening today]. The bad guys in Eastern Europe are often using the U.K. as their beta ...
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KnowBe4 Gets 1st place for the Tampa Best Places To Work

We're stoked here. We got 1st place for the Tampa Best Places To Work - small business category!!! The Tampa Bay Times has a yearly "Best Places To Work" contest, and surveys the ...
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Users Really Do Plug in USB Drives They Find

Been suspecting that your users are plugging in any USB stick they find, to see what is on it? Well, you are right, they actually do that. Fresh scientific research by Google, and the ...
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[FBI ALERT] Dramatic Increase in e-mail CEO Fraud To 2.3 Billion.

A brand new Alert by the FBI on April 4th 2016 warns of a major increase in what they call business email compromise or BEC (we call it CEO Fraud), amounting to a whopping $2.3 billion in ...
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More About Petya Hard Disk Lock BSoD Ransomware

[UPDATE April 10, 2016] Petya's ransomware's encryption has been defeated and a password generator has been released. See bottom of the post. March 25, news came out about a new type of ...
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KnowBe4 Has Blowout First Quarter 2016

KnowBe4, the United States’ most popular integrated platform for security awareness training and simulated phishing tests, announced it attained a top spot (#220) in the Cybersecurity ...
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It's CONFIRMED: MedStar Receives A Massive Ransomware Demand

It is now confirmed, The MedStar Hospital Chain was hit with ransomware and has received a digital ransom note. A Baltimore Sun reporter has seen a copy of the cybercriminal's demands. ...
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I am introducing a new phishing term: "Attackment"

Phishing attacks usually have a payload of infected attachments. With the recent ransomware attacks on hospitals I was asked for a press quote and the word "Attackment" suddenly came into ...
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Ransomware Attack Shuts Down Medstar Washington Hospital

The Washington Post reported that a ransomware infection penetrated the computer network of MedStar Health early Monday morning, forcing the Washington health care behemoth to shut down ...
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New Feature: IP Geolocation

When a user clicks on a link in a simulated phishing attack, or opens an attachment, we record the IP address of the request. For various reasons, KnowBe4 customers have requested us to ...
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Scam Of The Week: Phishing Email Uses Accurate GPS Data To Catch Speeding Drivers

[UPDATE] See new information at the bottom of this posts. A phishing scam posing as a speeding ticket email with a malicious link is nothing new. But here's an innovation that should give ...
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Survey: 62% of Companies Lack Confidence in Ability to Confront Ransomware Threat

Tripwire just published a new study which suggests that a majority of businesses might not be adequately prepared to either prevent or fully recover from ransomware infections. They ...
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New Ransomware Written In Windows PowerShell

Lucian Constantin at CSO had the scoop. A new ransomware program written in Windows PowerShell is being used in attacks against enterprises, including health care organizations, ...
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PETYA ransomware Locks Users Out by Overwriting Master Boot Record

Security researchers at Trend Micro have found a new type of ransomware that doesn’t encrypt specific files but makes the entire hard drive inaccessible. The malware has been named Petya ...
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