Jason Trahan reports that when the Cockrell Hill Police Department server was infected with ransomware after an employee clicked on a link in an email that appeared to be from the department, the department decided not to pay the $4,000 ransom demand. As a result, Trahan reports, the department lost some video evidence and a…
Category: Malware
Google Removes Ransomware-Laden App From Play Store
Jai Vijayan reports: A ransomware sample that was recently discovered embedded in an Android application on Google Play Store suggests that threat actors may have found a dangerous new way to get extortion malware on mobile devices. The malware, dubbed Charger, is believed to be the first instance of ransomware being successfully uploaded to Google’s…
MN: PrimeWest Health notifies members of Summit Reinsurance incident
Another entity affected by the Summit Reinsurance ransomware attack in March, 2016 is first notifying individuals of the incident. See this report about PrimeWest Health. The insurer notified HHS of the incident on December 29, reporting that 2,441 members were affected. The reinsurer’s breach was discovered on August 8, 2016, and yet affected entities are…
Russian programmer suspected of creating “Banking Trojan”
RAPSI News reports: MOSCOW, January 20 (RAPSI) – Russian programmer Stanislav Lisov arrested in Spain is suspected of developing NeverQuest malware, the so-called “Banking Trojan” which steals bank account logins and gives attackers access to accounts through computers of victims, the Spanish Civil Guard announced on its website on Friday. Damage allegedly caused by Lisov’s actions…
Ohio State Veterinary Medical Center at Dublin hit with possible data breach
Owen Daugherty reports: A malware infection is to blame for a security breach that could put the personal information of up to 4,611 clients of the Ohio State Veterinary Medical Center at Dublin in jeopardy. Clients were alerted of the possible threat that could put their bank account information, credit card numbers, driver’s license and…
Stop calling all hacks with ransom demands “ransomware”
For the past year, I’ve been criticizing entities that describe their data leaks as “hacks” (cf, this article of mine on The Daily Dot or this post as examples). More recently, Zack Whittaker has also forcefully raised that issue on ZDNet. Whether other journalists will adapt their language and correctly report incidents as “leaks” instead of “hacks”…