Charlie Osborne reports: All United States public K-12 school districts were eligible to apply for the grants, designed to help school officials “proactively prepare for and respond to cyberattacks.” The grants, worth $500,000 each, have been awarded to school districts in Florida (Brevard Public Schools), New York (Poughkeepsie City School District), Georgia (KIPP Metro Atlanta Schools),…
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
Claiming to be the “new generation,” threat actors declare, “No more discounts or long negotiations”
This week saw the emergence of a new group calling themself “Pay or Grief.” Or maybe they call themselves “Grief” or “Grief_List.” I really am not sure because they haven’t responded to simple questions like “What do we call you?” In any event, DataBreaches.net noted two of their attacks and now SuspectFile was able to…
How to Negotiate with Ransomware Hackers
Rachel Monroe has an interesting profile of a ransom negotiator in The New Yorker. But the piece also provides an answer to a puzzling claim in a blog post by REvil that referred to fraudulent middlemen. When the negotiator hired by a victim entered the chat, they discovered that someone had already been negotiating with…
Ethical disclosures are being ignored: an unchecked security crisis
Ron Nahamias, Cyberpion co-founder and CBO, has a piece in Security Magazine that includes a topic near and dear to my heart — companies that do not provide a way to notify them of a security breach, leak, or vulnerability. He writes, in part: Sometimes the burying of the head in the sand, even if…
Russia’s FSB reports ‘unprecedented’ hacking campaign aimed at government agencies
Reuters reports: Foreign hackers compromised Russian federal agencies in a digital espionage campaign that Russian officials described as unprecedented in scope and sophistication. The little-noticed report – published this month by Russia’s FSB security service and Rostelecom-Solar, the cybersecurity arm of telecoms company Rostelecom (RTKM.MM) – provides an unusually detailed look at a purportedly state-backed cyber spying…
Ransomware Unmasked: Dispute Reveals Ransomware TTPs
Two of the more well-known Russian-language forums have “arbitration” or “complaint” sections where members can present complaints and evidence against other members involving financial disputes or claims. Those disputes, with evidence provided non-publicly to the moderators/arbitrators, often provide interesting insights into threat actors’ methods or relationships. In the past few weeks, there have been two…