David O’Dornan and Paul Higgins report: A teenage boy was today charged with creating a computer virus which ‘crashed hundreds of financial institutions’ across the world. Although he did not appear at Newtownards Magistrates Court in Northern Ireland, 18-year-old Josh Maunder was charged with 21 offences. They included 13 charges of doing an unauthorised act…
Category: Malware
Brooks County pays off hacker with tax dollars after ransomware attack
Andrew Christiansen reports: A recent ransomware attack on Brooks County’s Justice of the Peace and district courts, and finance department, cost it more than $37,000. “I’m very unhappy because of that,” said resident Mario Villarreal. “It’s scary — of course it is — for everybody.” Brooks County Judge Eric Ramos said the attack took place…
Conti ransomware hacking spree breached over 40 orgs in a month
Ionut Ilascu reports: The Conti cybercrime syndicate runs one of the most aggressive ransomware operations and has grown highly organized, to the point that affiliates were able to hack more than 40 companies in a little over a month. Security researchers codenamed the hacking campaign ARMattack and described it as being one of the group’s…
Vice Society claims responsibility for attack on one of Milan’s most important hospital systems
DataBreaches has never been to Milan but in researching this post, DataBreaches read the history of the Fatebenefratelli-Sacco Territorial Social Healthcare Company (ASST). Reading how it has evolved since the late 1800’s to serve the people of Milan makes it clear how vital this hospital system is to Milan and its people. On May 5, Asst…
Grand Valley State University hit by ransomware but remains publicly silent
According to its website, Grand Valley State University (GVSU) in Michigan currently has 19,239 undergraduate students and 3,027 graduate students. The university offers 141 undergraduate and graduate degrees and employs 1,760 faculty members and 2,050 support staff members. Almost all of their students get some kind of financial aid. Those are some commendable statistics. But…
Four ransomware attacks on non-U.S. medical entities: Did anyone get notified?
So far, 2022 is not turning out to be a better year than 2021 when it comes to ransomware attacks on the healthcare sector. In its recent report, “The State of Ransomware in Healthcare 2022,” Sophos reports that ransomware attacks in the healthcare sector almost doubled from 2020 to 2021 and that while the ransom…