Security Awareness Training Blog

Ransomware Blog

Keeping you updated on the latest ransomware attack vectors, strains, decryptors, families and trends to help you avoid becoming infected.

Healthcare Ransomware Attacks – Don’t Be Part of the Statistics

Rebecca Wynn at securitycurrent.com wrote a great article on how not to become a ransomware statistic in health care: "In 2017, six of the top ten HIPAA breaches reported to the U.S. ...
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Hospital Pays $55K Ransomware Demand DESPITE Having Backups

An Indiana hospital paid a ransom of $55,000 to get rid of ransomware that had infected its systems and was hindering operations last week. The infection took root last week, on Thursday, ...
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[Heads-up] Unusual Ransomware Strain Encrypts Cloud Email Real-time

OK, here is something unusual and really scary. KnowBe4's Chief Hacking Officer Kevin Mitnick called me with some chilling news. A white hat hacker friend of his developed a working ...
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63% of organizations experienced an attempted ransomware attack in 2017

Interesting research by Enterprise Strategy Group: 63% of organizations experienced an attempted ransomware attack in 2017, with 22% reporting these incidents occurred on a weekly basis. ...
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File-less Malware Attacks Hit Milestone in 2017 And Ransomware Grows to $5 Billion Industry

New data shows that file-less malware attacks are now the majority of all attacks this year, and ransomware grows to a whopping 5 billion industry. Fileless malware attacks using ...
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Roll back time when users click on a bad link with our new free tool, Second Chance!

Wouldn't it be great if your users had a way to "roll back time" when they forgot to think before they click on a bad link? Now they can! We are excited to announce Second Chance, a ...
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This ransomware asks victims to name their own price to get their files back

Attackers behind this form of file-encrypting malware - which has similarities with Locky - think that if the victim can set their own price, they're more likely to pay. A form of ...
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48 Servers Of North Carolina County Held Hostage by LockCrypt Ransomware

A hacker’s 1 p.m. deadline to pay $23,000 passed Wednesday, and Mecklenburg County has not decided whether to pay the ransom for a cyber-attack that “paralyzed” the county. County manager ...
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UK Shipping firm Clarksons falls victim to hybrid ransomware / data theft extortion

Shipping company Clarksons has fallen victim to a major ransomware attack that could result in the exposure of private data, the company warned today. The statement continued: "Our ...
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Massive Phishing Attack On Businesses with Evil New Ransomware Strain

The Scarab ransomware strain is updated again and spreads via Necurs botnet in a massive 12.5 million campaign, mostly targeting .com domains. Scarab was spotted June 2017 for the first ...
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‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Fall Finale Cliffhanger: Hospital Shut Down By Ransomware Attack

Ransomware goes prime time: TV Show Grey's Anatomy characters Bailey and Arizona are unable to access medical records on the computer and an I.T. specialist named Tim notes that cardiac ...
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The future of cyberwar: ​Weaponised ransomware, IoT attacks and a new arms race

Steve Ranger at TechRepublic did a good job summarizing the direction of future threats we are going to have to deal with. "After at least a dozen years in the shadows, cyberwarfare is ...
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Ransomware recovery methods: What does the NIST suggest?

Knowing what ransomware recovery methods are available is important as the threat continues to grow. Expert Judith Myerson at TechTarget outlines what the NIST recommends for enterprises. ...
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Ordinypt Ransomware Intentionally Destroys Files, Currently Targeting Germany

A new ransomware strain called Ordinypt is currently targeting victims in Germany, but instead of encrypting users' documents, the ransomware rewrites files with random data. Discovered ...
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Bad Rabbit Ransomware Attack Was Hiding A Spear Phishing Campaign

During the attacks in eastern Europe with the Bad Rabbit ransomware, a more insidious attack was taking place in Ukraine under its cover, Reuters reported. Serhiy Demedyuk, head of the ...
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Shame and confusion lead to employees paying ransoms out of pocket

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

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 ...
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Worldwide Bad Rabbit Ransomware Outbreak Starts With Social Engineering

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, ...
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Ransomware Spear Phishing Attack Used To Hide 60M Cyberheist

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

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. ...
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