Security News
Global securities finance tech company EquiLend's systems are now back online after announcing a disruptive ransomware attack nearly two weeks ago. Providing regular updates via a dedicated web page, EquiLend almost completed its full restoration last week, waiting only for its data and analytics solutions to get back up and running.
Aliaksandr Klimenka, a Belarusian and Cypriot national, has been indicted in the U.S. for his involvement in an international cybercrime money laundering operation. The U.S. DoJ alleged back then that the platform was used to launder funds stolen during the hack of Japanese crypto exchange platform Mt. Gox, as well as ransom payments for the Locky, Cerber, NotPetya, WannaCry, and Spora ransomware operations.
"As the risk of vendor payment fraud grows, so does the need to automate bank account validations and embed them into your daily processes. It's essential for winning the fight against fraud and ensuring payments are sent to the correct parties." 75% of C-level finance and treasury leaders say they'd stop doing business with an organization that fell victim to payment fraud and lost their payment.
The data from ransomware response and negotiation company Coveware continues a downward trend since it began monitoring in 2019, when it said the rate of companies choosing to pay ransomware actors was a whopping 85 percent. Along with a decrease in overall ransomware payments, Coveware found that payments for data exfiltration-only incidents also hit an all-time low since it began tracking them in 2022.
The number of ransomware victims paying ransom demands has dropped to a record low of 29% in the final quarter of 2023, according to ransomware negotiation firm Coveware. Not only have the number of victims paying ransomware dropped but also the dollar amounts of actual ransom payments.
U.S. mortgage lender loanDepot has suffered a cyberattack that caused the company to take IT systems offline, preventing online payments against loans.LoanDepot is one of the largest nonbank retail mortgage lenders in the USA, employing approximately 6,000 people and servicing loans of over $140 billion.
Opinion A general ban on ransomware payments, as was floated by some this week, sounds like a good idea. Such a ban would need to be universal or else ransomware crews will simply focus on victims in other geographic regions that don't prohibit payments.
"I think more people are coming to accept that a ban, while problematic, may ultimately be the only solution to the ransomware problem," he told The Register. For example, the Biden administration deciding to make ransom payments illegal as of February 1 would be "Problematic, given the lack of overall resilience and maturity across the economy, particularly when you think about all those soft targets the report identifies," Stifel told The Register, echoing the conclusion [PDF] reached by the Ransomware Task Force.
The fintech market is undergoing a rapid shift, with the rise of new technologies, such as Open Finance, generative AI and A2A payments having a major impact on business models, according to Juniper Research. The fintech markets is moving into a phase where innovation for innovation's sake is no longer a viable strategy.
The popularity of Brazil's PIX instant payment system has made it a lucrative target for threat actors looking to generate illicit profits using a new malware called GoPIX. Kaspersky, which has...