How many ransomware threat groups have become household names over the last decade? The answer, surprisingly, is none. Ransomware groups typically spring from nowhere, achieve a degree of notoriety, then disappear just as suddenly, never to be heard of again. None has stuck around long enough to achieve much name recognition. At best, it’s been […]
An essential element in being prepared to respond to cyber attacks, and ransomware attacks in particular, is to close the biggest and most easily breached hole in an any organization’s firewall —well-intentioned internal users who fall victim to phishing attacks. Phishing attacks work by tricking users into clicking links or opening email attachments that install […]
Ransomware attacks are increasing at an alarming rate worldwide. In response, knowledge of ransomware history and ransomware origins must also increase. This will help you respond better if you or your business falls victim to an attack. Ransomware: A Quick History The ransomware origin timeline starts with the AIDS Trojan in 1989. From there, ransomware […]
The world has watched as the conflict unfolded in Ukraine. With the messaging from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and other government entities around the world flagging organizations to enter a full “Shields Up” approach, the information security community continues to watch for fallout from the ever-changing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. […]
In Part One of my series on ransomware tabletops, a company was caught unprepared when hit with a real ransomware attack. Fortunately for them, their tape backups weren’t affected by the attack, and they lost less than a day’s worth of data. Who Do We Fire? The new CTO wanted to know who was to […]
What’s worse than being hit by a ransomware attack out of the blue? In early December, a Canadian organization discovered the answer in the worst possible way: get ransomed by a second, entirely different attack, on the same day. Being attacked simultaneously by two different ransomware groups is supposed to be rare—or perhaps it’s just […]
