Ransomware remains a formidable threat to organizations worldwide. According to a recent survey conducted by Bitdefender, 75% of respondents experienced up to 5 attacks in the last 12 months alone, and organizations accounted for 42% of all ransomware infections. Though cyber-criminals have always targeted Microsoft products, the rapid growth in the popularity of Office 365 has made it a #1 target for ransomware attacks. Cerber, a recent strain of ransomware, … Read more
Though ransomware is slowly being replaced by Cryptojacking as the most popular form of malware, ransomware is still a formidable threat, with even more variants – targeting even more devices and industries. According to the following infographic, “every 40 seconds a company is hit with ransomware”, with 71% of those companies getting infected. Below are some pointers that can help companies prevent, detect, and recover from a ransomware attack. Prevention … Read more
Cryptojacking is a relatively new technique which enables cyber-criminals to illegally “mine” cryptocurrencies on both vulnerable web servers and unsuspecting users’ devices. Cryptocurrency mining is the process by which cryptocurrency “coins” are created. In simple terms, miners use computational resources to perform calculations, which involve iterating through billions of random inputs, until a desired output is achieved. Of course, it’s a lot more complicated than that, but an explanation about … Read more
When considering the costs associated with a ransomware attack, we tend to assume that the greatest expense is paying the actual ransom. However, this isn’t necessarily the case. There are a number of hidden costs relating to things like forensic investigations, restoring backups, down-time, damage to reputation, lawsuits and fines. It should be noted that it’s generally not a good idea to pay the ransom. After all, there’s no guarantee … Read more
The infamous WannaCry ransomware attack of May 2017, which infected more than 300,000 devices across 150 countries, is still regarded as the most prolific of its kind. Hospitals in the UK were temporarily shut down. Ambulances were diverted, surgeries were cancelled, and appointments were postponed. Yet, despite the widespread damage that was caused by WannaCry, it was by no means the most profitable, nor was it the most sophisticated type … Read more
Arguably, one good thing to come out of the recent spate of crippling ransomware attacks is a wider adoption of ransomware detection and prevention solutions. Third-party ransomware specialists are providing quality solutions that help you spot ransomware attacks early and mitigate the damages that they can cause. Unfortunately, as these prevention solutions evolve, so too do the ransomware attacks themselves. In 2018, we’re likely to see ransomware attacks that are … Read more
Since the city of Atlanta was hit by a ransomware attack that effectively crippled much of the public services in the city, we’ve been getting a lot of people asking – why didn’t they just pay the ransom? Early reports suggest that the government of Atlanta did not pay the $51,000 ransom that was demanded in return for the encryption keys that would supposedly restore the affected systems. $51,000 does … Read more
On March 22nd, the city of Atlanta was hit by a very sophisticated “SamSam” ransomware attack that effectively crippled the government and much of the public services in the state. Citizens in the capital are unable to pay their parking fines or for essential services like water. The police are having to switch to paper reports as digital services have been compromised. These effects lasted for at least 6 days … Read more
A recent study by IT Security giant Sophos, The State of Endpoint Security Today, has revealed some very interesting facts about the devastating effects that ransomware has on organizations around the globe; and, in particular, on companies in the healthcare industry. Some of the key findings included the fact that more than half of the organizations that were surveyed had been affected by a ransomware attack, and on average they … Read more
There’s no doubt that attacks will continue to increase in frequency, severity and complexity. Behind the scenes, nations are fighting what appears to be a cybersecurity war. According to the president of Microsoft, North Korea was allegedly behind the WannaCry ransomware attack that temporarily brought down numerous NHS trusts. Ukraine’s security service (SBU) claim that Russia was behind NotPetya attacks which resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. … Read more
