Any competent business advisor would likely tell a client that spending $76,000 in order to potentially fend off an incident that could cost that organizations millions of dollars would be money well spent. There are no easy answers when it comes to ransom payments. But what happens to that calculus when the outlay is a…
The Riviera Beach City Council voted this week to pay a 65-bitcoin, or $600,000, ransom in an attempt to have its computer system decrypted following a May 29 ransomware attack. This is in addition to the $914,000 the Florida city has had to pay for new computers damaged in the attack. The city council based…
An ongoing email-based phishing scam is attempting to fool recipients into opening malicious attachments disguised as notifications from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), according to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, in a warning posted on the official US-CERT web site this past Tuesday. “The email campaign uses a spoofed email address to…
A technique of using Google Calendar invites and events as spam is gathering volume, according to researchers. The mechanics are relatively simple: an attacker crafts an unsolicited calendar invitation carrying a link to a phishing URL, which is sent to the user’s Gmail or G Suite address. By default, smartphone Gmail will automatically add events…
Researchers have spotted the MuddyWater, Fin8 and Platinum cybergangs all making an unwanted comeback following an observed increase in malicious activity over the last few weeks. Trend Micro came across several campaigns its researchers believe contain the hallmarks of MuddyWater. But this time around the group apparently deployed a new multi-stage PowerShell-based backdoor called POWERSTATS…
The IRS once again is warning taxpayers to be on the lookout for phishing scams even after tax season has ended. The agency has identified two new variations of tax related scams with one threatening to cancels a victim’s social security while the other claims to threaten victims with an IRS lien or levy, according…
A newly discovered malicious backdoor by the name of Hawkball was recently observed in a campaign apparently targeting one or more Russian-speaking government entities in Central Asia, according to a blog post this week from FireEye Labs. Upon successful infection, Hawkball offers the unidentified attackers a range of malicious capabilities, writes FireEye blog post author…
New research has revealed the creator of the commercially available 16Shop phishing kit is double dipping and is surreptitiously capturing the information stolen by his customers. Akamai said the alleged developer, an Indonesian they believe goes by handle Riswanda, has no qualms about taking advantage of the criminals who license his phishing kit and has…
Ten days after Baltimore was hit with a ransomware attack that has effectively shut down large swathes of the city’s computer network the city council has created the Committee on Cybersecurity and Emergency Preparedness to examine how the municipality dealt with the situation. Baltimore City Council President Brandon Scott announced the committee at a May…
The Indiana Pacers franchise, Pacers Sports & Entertainment (PSE), fell victim to a phishing attack which resulted in unauthorized gaining access to emails containing personal information related to a limited number of individuals. The threat actors accessed emails containing names, addresses, dates of birth, passport numbers, medical and/or health insurance information, driver’s license/state identification numbers,…
