Mark Keierleber reports: Detailed and highly sensitive mental health records of hundreds — and likely thousands — of former Los Angeles students were published online after the city’s school district fell victim to a massive ransomware attack last year, an investigation by The 74 has revealed. The student psychological evaluations, published to a “dark web”…
Category: Malware
Lessons From a Ransomware Attack: The Importance of Partnership & Collaboration
The following is a guest article by John Gaede, Director of Information Systems at Sky Lakes Medical Center that appeared on Healthcare IT Today. Imagine a rural business is the victim of a cyberattack. A nefarious person or group convinces an unsuspecting employee to open an email promising a bonus. Within 12 hours, every piece of technology…
Rehoboth McKinley Christian Health Care Services settles data breach litigation for undisclosed amount
Rehoboth Mckinley Christian Health Care Services (“RMCHCS”) in New Mexico has reportedly settled litigation stemming from a ransomware attack that DataBreaches first reported in February 2021. Although Conti ransomware threat actors had added the health care service to their leak site and leaked some patients’ protected health information as proof of claims, there was nothing…
Washington State city allegedly hit by ransomware
Jurgita Lapienytė reports: Lakewood is a city in Pierce County, Washington, with a population of over 63,000. BlackCat claimed it had breached Lakewood City Council and stolen over 250GB worth of data. “Because of their misunderstanding and inability to negotiate, we share information with you,” BlackCat said and shared a link to download 252GB of…
HardBit 2.0 Ransomware
Jason Hill reports: First observed in October 2022, HardBit is a ransomware threat that targets organizations to extort cryptocurrency payments for the decryption of their data. Seemingly improving upon their initial release, HardBit version 2.0 was introduced toward the end of November 2022, with samples seen throughout the end of 2022 and into 2023. Like…
MN: KFI Engineers pays $300k ransom, Black Basta ransomware group thanks…
Marco A. De Felice (@amvinfe) managed to shoulder-surf ransom negotiations between Black Basta and KFI Engineers (“KFI”) in Minnesota. He reports that the victims wound up paying $300,000.00, half of what the attackers initially demanded. KFI counts schools and hospitals among its clients, but as an engineering firm, one would not expect them to have…