Security News
With the ransomware threat is surging unstoppably in the last few years, it was just a matter of time until ICS-specific ransomware became a reality. "While all indications at present show a relatively primitive attack mechanism on control system networks, the specificity of processes listed in a static 'kill list' shows a level of intentionality previously absent from ransomware targeting the industrial space," Dragos researchers pointed out.
A further education college in east Scotland has been struck by what its principal described as a cyber "Bomb" in an apparent ransomware attack so bad that students have been told to stay away and reset passwords en masse. Dundee and Angus College told students not to turn up after the ransomware seemingly downed the entire institution's IT systems.
Australian transportation and logistics giant Toll Group was forced to shut down some of its online services in response to a ransomware attack and customers are not happy with the way the company has handled the incident. A notice posted on the Toll website to inform customers about the incident promised regular updates, but many were displeased with the fact that the first update came only several days later.
"We are more interested in ransomware that models behavior that we saw in the WannaCry attacks, where ransomware can exploit a vulnerability and propagate across a network," Ekstrom, who helped work on the documents, tells Information Security Media Group. One significant reason why NIST created these practice guidelines now is that the nature of ransomware has changed over the last two years, Ekstrom says.
Western military alliance NATO could have reacted with force to the 2017 WannaCry ransomware outbreak that locked up half of Britain's NHS, Germany's top cybergeneral has said. During a panel discussion about military computer security, Major General Juergen Setzer, the Bundeswehr's chief information security officer, admitted that NATO's secretary-general had floated the idea of a military response to the software nasty.
Western military alliance NATO could have reacted with force to the 2017 WannaCry ransomware outbreak that locked up half of Britain's NHS, Germany's top cybergeneral has said. During a panel discussion about military computer security, Major General Juergen Setzer, the Bundeswehr's chief information security officer, admitted that NATO's secretary-general had floated the idea of a military response to the software nasty.
A federal judge has ruled that an insurer providing a "Business owner's insurance policy" to National Ink & Stitch, which sustained a ransomware attack in 2016 and was forced to replace most of its IT infrastructure, must pay for the damages the security incident caused. In her recent ruling, Judge Stephanie Gallagher of the U.S. District Court of Maryland wrote that the damage to Nation Ink & Stitch's computer infrastructure from a ransomware attack constituted "Physical loss or damage" covered by the insurance policy and that the insurer must pay the costs to recover and rebuild the network.
A current hacking competition on the illicit forum known as XSS offers members the chance to win a share of $15,000 in return for original articles containing proof-of-concept videos or original code, according to a Digital Shadows report, released on Thursday. In the past, competitions on underground forums offered much smaller prize winnings and also focused on lighthearted challenges meant to build community, rather than hacking prowess.
RiskSense, pioneering risk-based vulnerability management and prioritization, announced a Ransomware Dashboard that automatically reveals an organization's exposure to specific attacks including the ransomware family name, vulnerabilities they exploit, the assets at risk and remediation steps to prevent an infection. To enable organizations to go on the offensive and fix the very vulnerabilities that make ransomware attacks possible, the RiskSense Ransomware Dashboard reveals all assets, including workstations, servers, storage devices and more, at risk from active exploits used by ransomware in the wild.
A Canadian insurance business struck by ransomware paid off the crooks via a cyber insurance policy - and their English reinsurers, having shelled out 109.25 Bitcoins, want it back from the alleged blackmailers. After infection the unnamed Canadian company suffered a total lockdown of all of its systems and asked its reinsurance firm to pay the ransom so it could get back on its feet.