Nate Raymond reports that the Martin Gottesfeld has been sentenced to more than 10 years in prison and $443,000 in restitution for his DDoS attack on Boston Children’s Hospital and another facility in 2014. Gottesfeld had been convicted on August 1, and had shown no remorse for his actions. According to prosecutors, in late 2013,…
A Nasty Trick: From Credential Theft Malware to Business Disruption
Kimberly Goody, Jeremy Kennelly, Jaideep Natu, Christopher Glyer write: FireEye is tracking a set of financially-motivated activity referred to as TEMP.MixMaster that involves the interactive deployment of Ryuk ransomware following TrickBot malware infections. These operations have been active since at least December 2017, with a notable uptick in the latter half of 2018, and have…
UK hacker “BestBuy” sentenced for Mirai botnet attack on Lonestar
Catalin Cimpanu does some great reporting on the sentencing of “BestBuy:” A UK court sentenced today a 30-year-old man to two years and eight months in prison for using a DDoS botnet to viciously attack and take down internet connectivity in Liberia in the fall of 2016. The man is 30-year-old Daniel Kaye, also known…
Privacy commissioner finds Health Prince Edward Island response to unauthorized hospital employee accessing patient files was reasonable
Ryan Ross reports: Health P.E.I.’s response to a privacy breach involving patient health records was reasonable, but steps could have been taken to prevent it, says P.E.I.’s privacy commissioner. In a report released in December, privacy commissioner Karen Rose reviewed the unauthorized access of electronic health records for 353 people, which she referred to as…
FL: High school students allegedly provided hacking as a paid service to change peers’ grades: Police
Hank Tester reports: A major investigation is underway at a South Florida high school into just that. Three students are suspected of breaking into Flanagan High School’s computer system to boost their classmates’ grades, but only those who paid. “They are like 18,” said student Valaria Delgado. “They could go to jail. That’s like hacking.”…
Attributions Have Consequences: The Danger of Calling Out Cyberattackers
Leonid Bershidsky reports: The $100 million lawsuit that Mondelez, the maker of Oreos and Cadbury chocolate, has brought against Zurich Insurance Group shows that governments should be more careful about identifying the would-be culprits in putative cyberwars: Such claims can have unintended consequences, and can sometimes harm businesses. […] Mondelez claimed $100 million on its…