Kevin Collier reports: On Jan. 15, a hacker tried to poison a water treatment plant that served parts of the San Francisco Bay Area. It didn’t seem hard. The hacker had the username and password for a former employee’s TeamViewer account, a popular program that lets users remotely control their computers, according to a private report…
Category: Of Note
State Legislatures Consider Bans on Ransomware Payments
Emily Poole of Alston & Bird writes: As ransomware attacks continue to dominate the news cycle, legislation has recently been introduced in several states that would place limits on certain entities’ ability to pay a ransom payment in the event of a ransomware attack. Although the proposed limits would generally apply to state agencies and…
For hacked companies, paying a ransom may not work: Many say they paid but were attacked again
Hiawatha Bray reports: To pay or not to pay? For organizations victimized by ransomware, that’s a tricky question that may not have a good answer. A report from the Boston tech security firm Cybereason argues that paying off cybercriminals may not get businesses off the hook. In a global survey of nearly 1,300 security professionals, two-thirds said…
SCOOP: UnitingCare paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to REvil for decryption key and deletion of files
On April 25, UnitingCare Queensland (UCQ) was the victim of a ransomware attack that impacted multiple Queensland hospitals and aged care centres. The next day, they posted a notice on their web site informing people as to what was happening and its impact. And on May 5, they posted a second update where they revealed…
Cl0p affiliated hackers exposed in Ukraine, $500 million in damages estimated
Vilius Petkauskas reports: Ukrainian police reported uncovering a group of hackers who used ransomware software to extort money from foreign businesses, mainly in the United States and South Korea. Authorities claim that hackers used Cl0p encryption software to decipher stolen data and demanded ransom for the access key. According to the police, suspects used double-extorsion,…
SEC Settles Enforcement Action for Disclosure Controls Violations Stemming from Data Security Incident
Kate Hanniford writes: The SEC has settled an enforcement action against a large title insurer in connection with public statements and disclosures made by the company in May 2019 relating to a data security incident. The underlying data security incident was the subject of the first set of charges brought by the New York Division of Financial…