Conti ransomware actors have created a national emergency in Costa Rica, where the government declared a state of emergency. Multiple government agencies have reportedly been impacted by an attack in April and the government’s refusal to pay the ransom demands. Kevin Collier of NBC reported: The official declaration, published on a government website Wednesday, said that the attack…
Author: Dissent
How to Fight Foreign Hackers With Civil Litigation
Kellen Dwyer, Kim Peretti, and Emily Skahill of Alston & Bird write: The Department of Justice dealt a blow to global cybercrime on April 6 with the takedown of a massive botnet controlled by “Sandworm”—the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) unit responsible for the 2017 NotPetya attack, among others. This operation reflects the…
Italy prevents pro-Russian hacker attacks during Eurovision contest
Reuters reports: Italian police thwarted hacker attacks by pro-Russian groups during the May 10 semi-final and Saturday final of the Eurovision Song Contest in Turin, authorities said on Sunday. Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra won the contest with their entry “Stefania”, riding a wave of public support to claim an emotional victory that was welcomed by the…
Most organizations hit by ransomware would pay up if hit again
Dan Robinson reports: Almost nine in 10 organizations that have suffered a ransomware attack would choose to pay the ransom if hit again, according to a new report, compared with two-thirds of those that have not experienced an attack. The findings come from a report titled “How business executives perceive ransomware threat” by security company…
Angry IT admin wipes employer’s databases, gets 7 years in prison
Bill Toulas reports: Han Bing, a former database administrator for Lianjia, a Chinese real-estate brokerage giant, has been sentenced to 7 years in prison for logging into corporate systems and deleting the company’s data. Bing allegedly performed the act in June 2018, when he used his administrative privileges and “root” account to access the company’s…
He thought he was logging in to his cryptocurrency account. Then hackers stole his life savings.
Ken Dilanian and Michelle Cho report: A few days before Christmas last year, Philip Martin sat in front of his computer to check his cryptocurrency balance. It was the beginning of what would become, for him, an ongoing nightmare. Martin told NBC News he thought he was typing the web address for his cryptocurrency exchange,…