Simon Batt reports: For a while, ransomware attacks were a hacker’s and scammer’s favorite tool for extracting money from their victims. Now, Microsoft reports that ransomware has now fallen out of favor in place of another kind of attack: cryptojacking. Why Cryptojacking Took the Number One Spot On the Microsoft Security blog, the company details how the…
Author: Dissent
Wait, What?! Ninth Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Data Breach Litigation for Deficient Damages Allegations
Christina Lamoureux and Kristin Bryan of Squire Patton Boggs write: At CPW we’ve been giving our readers comprehensive coverage of rulings in the realm of data breach litigation. For a reminder of the current Article III standing split in the data breach context and some other decisions, check out our prior posts here, here, and here. Well, last…
Mean and median ransomware payments up in Q1, but number of victims paying ransom may be decreasing
A new report from Coveware indicates that the average ransom payment increased 43% to $220,298 in Q1 of this year from $154,108 in Q4 of 2020. The median payment in Q1 also increased to $78,398 from $49,450, a 58% increase. That’s the bad news. At the same time average payment was increasing, Coveware notes that…
Ca: Privacy commissioner investigating COVID Secretariat data breach
Luke Carroll reports: The Information and Privacy Commissioner (IPC) is investigating a data breach by the COVID-19 Secretariat where the identities of residents self-isolating were disclosed. The email addresses — and in some cases names — were revealed in an email sent out to travellers who were self-isolating. CKLB has obtained a copy of the…
OR: Centennial schools to close for 2 days after hackers breach school technology systems
Update of May 6: the district confirmed this as a ransomware attack. Their computers are still offline. Original post: Jayati Ramakrishnan reports: A Portland-area school district has canceled Tuesday and Wednesday classes as staffers work to fix a ransomware attack that may have affected the district’s technology systems. Centennial School District staff discovered Monday that certain…
Developing — Babuk claims to have hacked Metropolitan D.C. Police
Update 8:30 pm: The police have now confirmed unauthorized access to their server. The FBI is investigating. The threat actors known as Babuk have added the Metropolitan Police D.C. to their leak site, adding, “We will not comment this time: Even such an organization has huge security gaps, we advise them to get in touch…