Why ransomware threat actors go after small school districts with few resources still puzzles me. The districts may be “low-hanging fruit” from a security perspective, but they generally do not have the resources to pay big ransom demands. So why target them? My puzzlement notwithstanding, a number of ransomware teams do attack k-12 districts. DoppelPaymer…
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
GenRx Pharmacy Breach Notice Shows How to Do It Right
This may be one of the best breach notifications I have ever read — for its plain language, clarity, and lack of attempt to spin. Not only did these folks respond promptly to an attack, but they had usable backups, stopped the attack quickly, and just…. handled this so well, it seems. Maybe they didn’t…
Seven states settle with CafePress over 2019 data breach
In August, 2019, this site noted that CafePress had been hacked in February. On October 1, 2019, I shared some of the notification I had received from them via email on September 30 because I found their notification confusing. Yesterday, state attorneys general announced a settlement with CafePress, stemming from the breach. This is the…
Ransomware attackers are making threatening phone calls to their victims, warns FBI
Catalin Cimpanu reports that ransomware threat actors are doing more than just calling their victims on the phone (as previously reported on this site and by ZDNet). Now at least one of the groups, DoppelPaymer, are allegedly threatening them. The incidents have been happening since February 2020, the FBI said in a PIN (private industry notification)…
Microsoft says it identified 40+ victims of the SolarWinds hack, and more bad news…
Catalin Cimpanu reports: Microsoft said it identified more than 40 of its customers that installed trojanized versions of the SolarWinds Orion platform and where hackers escalated intrusions with additional, second-stage payloads. The OS maker said it was able to discover these intrusions using data collected by Microsoft Defender antivirus product, a free antivirus product built…
In wake of horrific Vastaamo breach, Finnish government tables laws to protect data from cyber criminals
Gerard O’Dwyer reports: The huge data security breach and cyber-ransom attack at Finland’s Vastaamo Psychotherapy Centre has provoked a swift response from the government, which is primed to introduce more rigid laws and measures to protect the country’s databases and sensitive information from cyber criminals. […] In a significant bolstering of Finland’s data security laws,…