Robert McMillan, Dustin Volz, and Aruna Viswanatha report: Extortion payments from ransomware, a hacking scourge that has crippled hospitals, schools and public infrastructure, fell significantly last year, according to federal officials, cybersecurity analysts and blockchain firms. One of the examples cited surprised me, as I had no idea a Conti call center had so many…
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True Health New Mexico settles lawsuit over 2021 ransomware incident
True Health New Mexico has agreed to a class action settlement to resolve claims that the health insurance provider failed to protect patient data from an October 2021 data breach. As reported by Top Class Actions, plaintiffs in several lawsuits claimed True Health New Mexico failed to protect their sensitive information from a ransomware attack…
L.A. Unified admits that at least 2,000 student records dumped after ransomware attack
Mark Keierleber’s article on The 74, noted on this blog yesterday and discussed by some of us on infosec.exchange, has apparently resulted in the district making some small admissions. Howard Blume reports: The Los Angeles Unified School District disclosed Wednesday that “approximately 2,000 student assessment records” were posted on the dark web as a result…
Lessons From a Ransomware Attack: The Importance of Partnership & Collaboration
The following is a guest article by John Gaede, Director of Information Systems at Sky Lakes Medical Center that appeared on Healthcare IT Today. Imagine a rural business is the victim of a cyberattack. A nefarious person or group convinces an unsuspecting employee to open an email promising a bonus. Within 12 hours, every piece of technology…
Washington State city allegedly hit by ransomware
Jurgita Lapienytė reports: Lakewood is a city in Pierce County, Washington, with a population of over 63,000. BlackCat claimed it had breached Lakewood City Council and stolen over 250GB worth of data. “Because of their misunderstanding and inability to negotiate, we share information with you,” BlackCat said and shared a link to download 252GB of…
HardBit 2.0 Ransomware
Jason Hill reports: First observed in October 2022, HardBit is a ransomware threat that targets organizations to extort cryptocurrency payments for the decryption of their data. Seemingly improving upon their initial release, HardBit version 2.0 was introduced toward the end of November 2022, with samples seen throughout the end of 2022 and into 2023. Like…