Ever since ransomware attacks and “double extortion” attacks became common, law enforcement has urged victims not to pay ransom demands. Paying criminals ransom only encourages them to attack more victims, and despite criminals swearing they will delete their copy of your data that they stole, they don’t. Then, too, once you show them that you…
Category: Of Note
Change Healthcare responding to cyberattack; few details known at this point
Early yesterday, Change Healthcare reported that they were experiencing enterprise-wide connectivity issues. They didn’t call it a cyberattack at that point, but by mid-day, their status reports were indicating that they were experiencing “a network interruption related to a cyber security issue.” A few hours later, they added a statement, “Once we became aware of…
Unpicking LockBit — 22 Cases of Affiliate Tradecraft
As part of its roll-out of news about the LockBit disruption, the governments involved have provided additional information and resources. One of the resources is an article by Secureworks. The summary of their article: Summary The GOLD MYSTIC threat group has operated the LockBit name-and-shame ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) scheme since mid-2019, exploiting unauthorized access to thousands…
HHS’ Office for Civil Rights Settles Second Ever Ransomware Cyber-Attack for $40,000 and a Corrective Action Plan with OCR Monitoring
HHS OCR has announced a second enforcement settlement in a ransomware case. The 2019 breach involving Green Ridge Behavioral Health managed to fly mostly under the media radar at the time. DataBreaches was not even aware that it was a ransomware attack as when this site contacted Green Ridge back then to inquire about the…
Reward Offers for Information on LockBit Leaders and Designating Affiliates
LockBitSupp, the top honcho at LockBit, always complained that there was no reward for him. He even offered a reward for anyone who could identify him. He should be so pleased by this latest announcement from the Department of State: The Department of State is announcing reward offers totaling up to $15 million for information…
Updating: In “Cronos,” law enforcement took down 34 Lockbit servers
As reported yesterday, law enforcement seized control of LockBit’s leak site and infrastructure. Attempts to view their leak site today show that the seizure notice has been replaced with a page that links to different information on LockBit’ seizure and law enforcement activities: Europol also released more information about the operations: The months-long operation…