Shame and confusion lead to employees paying ransoms out of pocket

Nov 4, 2017 11:20:50 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

Doug Olenick at SC Media reported on something quite surprising. This is the first time we've heard about this! Whether out of shame for being victimized or confusion over what to do more ...

2018 Is Likely To Be A Worse Year For Ransomware Than 2017

Nov 4, 2017 10:49:29 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

Sophos released their 2018 malware forecast this week. Their predictions would make any IT Pro concerned, a PDF of their report is here. Read on for your executive summary. Ransomware ...

Worldwide Bad Rabbit Ransomware Outbreak Starts With Social Engineering

Oct 24, 2017 8:05:15 PM By Stu Sjouwerman

Organizations in Russia, Ukraine and a few hours later also the U.S. are under siege from Bad Rabbit , a new strain of ransomware which is basically a new, improved NotPetya version 2, ...

Ransomware Spear Phishing Attack Used To Hide 60M Cyberheist

Oct 16, 2017 6:39:36 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

In a classic "divert their attention", the Taiwan Far East Bank was first attacked with spear phishing emails that pointed to malicious executables, which were clicked on by employees. ...

Carbon Black Says Ransomware Kit Sales On The Dark Web Shoot UP 2,502%

Oct 14, 2017 11:09:24 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

A new report from Carbon Black’s Threat Analysis Unit (TAU) used their data and modeling techniques to come up with an estimate of ransomware sales transactions activity on the Dark Web. ...

The Notorious Dark Overlord Mafia Escalates their Ransomware Threat

Oct 7, 2017 5:05:32 PM By Stu Sjouwerman

News has surfaced that the overseas Dark Overlord cyber mafia struck again and penetrated the Columbia Falls School Board system with ransomware. The seven-page ransom letter was filled ...

New Survey: IT Security Spending Is Up, But Security Is Not, Ransomware Is The Biggest Worry

Oct 7, 2017 11:11:00 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

The second-annual Cyren-Osterman Research U.S. security survey shows a significant disconnect between rising IT security spending and a low level of confidence in current protection, ...

Bitdefender Creates Ransomware Recognition Tool

Oct 2, 2017 7:18:35 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

The AV vendor created a free tool to help ransomware victims find which family and sub-version of ransomware has encrypted their data and then get the appropriate decryption tool, if it ...

New Locky Ransomware Strain Evades Machine Learning Security Software

Sep 29, 2017 7:18:56 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

Here is the latest tactic in the cat-and-mouse game between cybercrime and security software vendors. The bad guys have come up with new a ransomware phishing attack, tricking users to ...

Europol warns ransomware has taken cybercrime ‘to another level’

Sep 28, 2017 1:41:09 PM By Stu Sjouwerman

Europol, the European Union’s police agency, has warned of the significantly rising threat posed by ransomware. As Associated Press reports, delegates at an international conference were ...

Massive Spam Campaigns Push New Locky Ransomware With Doubled Ransom

Sep 22, 2017 2:50:00 PM By Stu Sjouwerman

Bleepingcomputer posted: "Reports are coming in from multiple security researchers and security firms about increased activity from one of the groups spreading the Locky ransomware. These ...

This Ransomware Demands Nudes Instead of Bitcoin

Sep 22, 2017 7:02:35 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

Cyber extortion is a very profitable criminal business model. Now, as if it was inevitable, someone has added a new, perverse twist: demanding naked photographs instead of Bitcoin, ...

Barracuda Advanced Technology Group Tracks 20 Million Ransomware Phishing Attack

Sep 20, 2017 7:21:31 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

Barracuda Advanced Technology Group says it’s tracking a ransomware threat that has so far spawned about 20 million phishing emails sent to unsuspecting users around the world in the last ...

Forbes Technology Group: Training Your Employees Ranks #2 In Preventing Ransomware Attacks

Sep 19, 2017 1:06:48 PM By Stu Sjouwerman

Forbes wrote a great article about protecting your organization against ransomware. Despite all the funds spent on state-of-the-art security software, the bad guys are always just one ...

Ransomware Can Destroy Backups In Four Ways

Sep 13, 2017 8:02:01 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

I just found a very interesting blog post by Jerome Wendt, President & Lead Analyst of DCIG, Inc., an independent storage analyst and consulting firm.

Companies Slow to Adopt Insurance As Hedge Against Ransomware Wave

Aug 31, 2017 12:46:48 PM By Stu Sjouwerman

Research firm Ovum for Silicon Valley analytics firm FICO, conducted a May 2017, survey about cyber insurance. And here is the head-scratcher: “The survey further concluded that “a full ...

[ALERT] The IRS Issued An Urgent Warning Against An IRS / FBI-Themed Ransomware Phishing Attack

Aug 29, 2017 7:01:20 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

WASHINGTON, August 28, 2017 — The Internal Revenue Service warned people to avoid a new phishing scheme that impersonates the IRS and the FBI as part of a ransomware scam to take computer ...

Health Care Systems Remain Targets of Ransomware And Phishing Attacks in 2017

Aug 25, 2017 4:41:25 PM By Stu Sjouwerman

Health care networks and providers are squarely in the cross hairs of ransomware cyber criminals and if the current rate of attacks continue it will likely exceed last years' events ...

Inside The New York Hospital That Was Down For 6 Weeks Due To Ransomware

Aug 22, 2017 10:00:00 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

If you ever needed ammo to convince budget holders that you need more IT security resources, this is the link to send them. It is a great discussion-starter how an attack like this would ...

New Report: Ransomware Attack Downtime, Not Ransom Demand, is the Business Killer

Aug 12, 2017 10:58:49 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

I have been saying this here for the last few years, and I am encouraged to see it now confirmed by a new survey from our friends at Malwarebytes. They released their “Second Annual State ...

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