Ravie Lakshmanan reports: Threat actors in North Korea have been implicated in a recent incident that deployed a known ransomware family called Play, underscoring their financial motivations. The activity, observed between May and September 2024, has been attributed to a threat actor tracked as Jumpy Pisces, which is also known as Andariel, APT45, DarkSeoul, Nickel Hyatt,…
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
Albany ENT & Allergy Services settles state charges stemming from two patient data breaches; agrees to spend $2.25M on security program
In April 2023, DataBreaches reported two ransomware groups had each listed Albany ENT & Allergy Services (AENT) on their respective leak sites. But one month later, when AENT sent notifications to regulators and 224,486 affected employees and patients, its notification letter made no mention of any ransomware attack, any encryption of files, any ransom demands,…
School ransomware attacks are on the rise. What can districts do?
Kara Arundel reports: … Ransomware — where threat actors use malware to block access to network systems and then demand payment to unlock it — has been ballooning in the K-12 sector over the last seven years, according to the K12 Security Information eXchange. Known as K12 SIX, the national nonprofit helps protect schools from…
Postel S.p.A. and the 2023 Data Breach: The Medusa Attack and Sanctions from the Data Protection Authority
Over on SuspectFile, Marco A. De Felice writes: In August 2023, Postel S.p.A., a leading Italian company in the postal services and digital communications sector, became the victim of a serious cyberattack. The Medusa cybercriminal group exploited unresolved vulnerabilities in the company’s systems, gaining access to a large amount of sensitive data. This breach raised significant…
Four members of REvil sentenced by Russian court
The following is a machine translation of a report at the Russian news outlet, Kommersant, concerning the sentencing of four members of the REvil ransomware group: On Friday, October 25, the St. Petersburg Garrison Military Court announced the verdict against Artem Zayets, Aleksey Malozemov, Daniil Puzyrevsky and Ruslan Khansvyarov. The court found them guilty of…
US Healthcare at risk: Strengthening resiliency against ransomware attacks
Microsoft writes: The healthcare sector faces a rapidly increasing range of cybersecurity threats, with ransomware attacks emerging as one of the most significant. A combination of valuable patient data, interconnected medical devices, and small IT/cybersecurity operations staff, which spreads resources thin, can make healthcare organizations prime targets for threat actors. As healthcare operations become increasingly digitized—ranging…