Danny Palmer reports: A virus infected computer systems at Newark Police Department in New Jersey last week, taking four days to clean up. The police department said there was no evidence of any sort of data breach and that the attack “did not disrupt the delivery of emergency services to our citizens”. Read more on…
Category: Malware
Blackhole’ Exploit Kit Author Gets 7 Years
Brian Krebs reports: A Moscow court this week convicted and sentenced seven hackers for breaking into countless online bank accounts — including “Paunch,” the nickname used by the author of the infamous “Blackhole” exploit kit. Once an extremely popular crimeware-as-a-service offering, Blackhole was for several years responsible for a large percentage of malware infections and stolen…
California ransomware bill supported by Hollywood hospital passes committee
Bradley Barth reports: A proposed California legislation imposing specific penalties for ransomware took a step forward yesterday when the state senate’s Public Safety Committee passed the bill at a hearing that featured testimony from Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center (HPMC) — a notable victim of the ongoing ransomware epidemic. The legislation, Senate Bill 1137, would amend California’s penal code making it…
New defense in Russian’s hacking case requests another delay to go through piles of evidence
Rick Anderson has an update on the prosecution of accused Russian hacker Roman Seleznev, and you’ll want to read it. Oh, the defense needing more time to prepare is not particularly exciting, however expected, but it’s all the other details about the case in Anderson’s report that you’ll want to read. Here’s a snippet: Seleznev, who Russian…
TX: Ransomware attacks 20 Northeast ISD schools
KENS reports: The Northeast Independent School District says it’s been hit by the latest craze in computer viruses known as ransomware. It is a type of malware or virus that limits users from accessing parts of their system, typically forcing the victim to pay some type of ransom in order to get their data back….
MedStar: Ransomware success wasn’t IT department’s fault
Sean Gallagher reports that MedStar is firmly denying others’ reporting about their recent ransomware attack: Tami Abdollah of the Associated Press reported Tuesday that an anonymous source “familiar with the investigation” of the cyberattack claimed that the flaws that allowed attackers to compromise a JBoss Web application server and attack the network with Samsam crypto-ransomware had…