On February 15, yours truly created an entry in the worksheet I maintain for tabulating U.S. incidents involving health data or protected health information. The entry listed “Capital Medical Center” in Washington as the breached entity, the date of disclosure as February 15, 2021, and the type of incident as a claimed ransomware attack by Avaddon…
Category: Malware
CZ: Three weeks after ransomware attack, Olomouc continues to recover while still being threatened by threat actors
On April 9, DataBreaches.net noted a report that the municipality f Olomouc had suffered a cyber attack on April 7. There were almost no details other than the municipality estimated it might take two weeks to fully restore services. Since then, a few more details have emerged. We now know that it was the Avaddon…
Ransomware gang targets Microsoft SharePoint servers
Catalin Cimpanu reports: The group behind the attacks targeting SharePoint servers is a new ransomware operation that was first seen at the end of 2020. The group is tracked by security vendors under the codenames of Hello or the WickrMe ransomware—because of its use of Wickr encrypted instant messaging accounts as a way for victims to reach out and…
Mean and median ransomware payments up in Q1, but number of victims paying ransom may be decreasing
A new report from Coveware indicates that the average ransom payment increased 43% to $220,298 in Q1 of this year from $154,108 in Q4 of 2020. The median payment in Q1 also increased to $78,398 from $49,450, a 58% increase. That’s the bad news. At the same time average payment was increasing, Coveware notes that…
OR: Centennial schools to close for 2 days after hackers breach school technology systems
Update of May 6: the district confirmed this as a ransomware attack. Their computers are still offline. Original post: Jayati Ramakrishnan reports: A Portland-area school district has canceled Tuesday and Wednesday classes as staffers work to fix a ransomware attack that may have affected the district’s technology systems. Centennial School District staff discovered Monday that certain…
NY: Guilderland Central Schools Hit with Malware Attack
Mike Goodwin reports: The Guilderland Central School District is the latest local organization victimized by a malware attack. District officials said the attack was discovered after technical interruptions occurred on Thursday, calling the incident a “cyber attack by a threat actor group which used malware to encrypt certain systems throughout the district.” Read more on…