As most people know by now, the cybersecurity community recently lost one of its brightest lights when Vitali Kremez died in a diving accident. Vitali and his wife Natalia were expecting their first child in a few months from now. His mother, Irina, was here in the U.S. on a visit at the time of…
Author: Dissent
Canadian police arrest suspected LockBit ransomware operator (updated)
Is the end of LockBit near? First an irate developer leaked the builder code for LockBit 3.0 code on GitHub in September. And now one of their big operators has been arrested in Canada. Howard Solomon reports: Canadian police have arrested a Russian citizen who they say is one of the world’s most prolific ransomware…
NY: Commack School District faces ransomware attack, superintendent says
Another Long Island school district may have fallen prey to a ransomware attack. Superintendent Jordan Cox informed parents of the Commack School District in a message Wednesday. “We have contacted federal, state and local authorities, including Homeland Security, and we are working closely with our Cyber Insurance carrier,” Cox wrote. “Ransomware such as this is…
NY: DFS Superintendent Adrienne A. Harris Announces Updated Cybersecurity Regulation
Amends First-In-The-Nation Cybersecurity Regulation Created in 2017 in Response to Increasingly Sophisticated Technologies and Threats The Department Seeks Comments on the Proposed Regulation During the Next 60 Days Superintendent of Financial Services Adrienne A. Harris announced today that the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) proposed an updated cybersecurity regulation. DFS’s original regulation, which…
State hit by largest sustained Election Day cyberattack warns ‘it’s only going to get worse’
Mark Albert reports: The longest sustained cyberattack against election websites in America on Election Day did not affect any votes but caused disruptions to voters’ efforts to determine their polling locations and access other information, Michael Watson, Mississippi’s secretary of state, said in his first interview about the attack. Watson, the state’s top election administrator,…
Taking down a ransomware hacker
An FBI investigation into a criminal ransomware gang believed to be tied to Russia led to a Canadian government employee in Gatineau, the largest cryptocurrency seizure in Canadian history and hundreds of victims around the world. Roxanna Woloshyn, Marie-Maude Denis and Linda Guerriero report: In the early morning hours of Jan. 27, 2021, two police…