On 28 September, a coordinated strike between the French National Gendarmerie (Gendarmerie Nationale), the Ukrainian National Police (Національна поліція України) and the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), with the coordination of Europol and INTERPOL, has led to the arrest in Ukraine of two prolific ransomware operators known for their extortionate ransom demands (between…
Category: Of Note
When the charm offensive didn’t work, threat actors just opted to be offensive
In 2020, those of us who report on ransomware attacks witnessed what some described as a “charm offensive” — spokespeople for ransomware groups granting interviews to journalists in which the threat actors tried to make themselves sound like professionals who have an ethics code and who are just trying to provide for their families. Those…
City of Dallas calls IT protocols ‘inadequate’ in 131-page report on police data loss
Ryan Osborne reports: Dallas’ city information technology department sent a 131-page report to city council on Thursday, detailing the massive data loss involving police records earlier this year and attributing the issue to “inadequate” protocols among IT staff. The report confirmed that 22 terabytes of data, involving more than 8 million records, were deleted in…
FCC to work on rules to prevent SIM swapping attacks
Catalin Cimpanu reports: The Federal Communications Commission announced today plans to introduce new rules for US mobile carriers to address the rising wave of SIM swapping and port-out fraud attacks. The two attacks, while they have different names, are closely related. Both take place when mobile carriers fail to properly verify a customer’s identity when…
A Hospital Hit by Hackers, a Baby in Distress: The Case of the First Alleged Ransomware Death
Even though it was subsequently disproved, a lot of people still claim that a patient death following a ransomware attack on a German hospital was the result of the attack. It wasn’t, but WSJ has a story about what might be the first death that can be attributed to a ransomware attack. Kevin Poulsen, Robert…
Group-IB founder arrested in Moscow on state treason charges
Catalin Cimpanu reports: Russian law enforcement agencies have raided the office of cybersecurity company Group-IB and detained its founder and chief executive officer, Ilya Sachkov, for two months, on state treason charges. The raids, first reported by Russian news outlet RTVI, took place on Tuesday, September 28. Read more on The Record.