Equifax Hack Exposes Personal Info of 143 Million US Consumers

It's ironic—the company that offers credit monitoring and ID theft protection solutions has itself been compromised, exposing personal information of as many as 143 million Americans—that's almost half the country. Equifax, one of the three largest credit reporting firm in the United States,...

DDoS attacks in Q2 2017

News Overview The second quarter of 2017 saw DDoS attacks being more and more frequently used as a tool for political struggle. The Qatar crisis was accompanied by an attack on the website of Al Jazeera, the largest news network in the area, Le Monde and Le Figaro websites were targeted in the he...

The real problem with ransomware

Ransomware – a specialized form of malware that encrypts files and renders them inaccessible until the victim pays a ransom – is an extremely serious problem and it’s quickly getting worse. The FBI estimated that ransomware payments were $1 billion in 2016, up from “just” $24 million a year...

FBI: Extortion, CEO Fraud Among Top Online Fraud Complaints in 2016

Online extortion, tech support scams and phishing attacks that spoof the boss were among the most costly cyber scams reported by consumers and businesses last year, according to new figures from the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center IC3. The IC3 report released Thursday correctly identifies...

Few Victims Reporting Ransomware Attacks to FBI

Ransomware may have been the most prevalent internet threat of 2016, and WannaCry certainly made it a mainstream conversation, but that doesn’t mean people are reporting incidents to law enforcement. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center’s annual report published this week counted only 2,673...

Are All Ransom Attacks Considered Ransomware?

Ransomware has loomed large in the news of late. It seems to be around every turn, and it’s not going anywhere. The untraceability of Bitcoin payments, coupled with new blackhat tools available to anyone at little if any cost, means extortion attempts will continue to grab headlines worldwide. Bu...

IC3 Issues Internet Crime Report for 2016

The Internet Crime Complaint Center IC3 has released its 2016 Internet Crime Report, describing the numbers and types of cyber crimes reported to IC3. Business Email Compromise BEC, ransomware attacks, tech support fraud, and extortion are all common schemes affecting people in the U.S. and aroun...

FIN10: Anatomy of a Cyber Extortion Operation

FireEye has identified a set of financially motivated intrusion operations being carried out by a threat actor we have dubbed FIN10. FIN10 is known for compromising networks, stealing sensitive data, and directly engaging victim executives and board members in an attempt to extort them into payin...

FIN10: Anatomy of a Cyber Extortion Operation

FireEye has identified a set of financially motivated intrusion operations being carried out by a threat actor we have dubbed FIN10. FIN10 is known for compromising networks, stealing sensitive data, and directly engaging victim executives and board members in an attempt to extort them into payin...

Man Jailed 6 Months for Refusing to Give Police his iPhone Passcode

Remember Ramona Fricosu? A Colorado woman was ordered to unlock her encrypted Toshiba laptop while the FBI was investigating alleged mortgage fraud in 2012, but she declined to decrypt the laptop saying that she did not remember the password. Later the United States Court ruled that Police can...

SEI Issues Advice on Ransomware

The Software Engineering Institute SEI of Carnegie Mellon University has released a blog post on best practices for preventing and responding to ransomware. This common malware captures, encrypts, and holds your data to extort a ransom. SEI’s top recommendation to thwart ransomware attacks is to...

The Future of Ransomware

Ransomware isn't new, but it's increasingly popular and profitable. The concept is simple: Your computer gets infected with a virus that encrypts your files until you pay a ransom. It's extortion taken to its networked extreme. The criminals provide step-by-step instructions on how to pay,...

Bell Canada Hacked: Data of 1.9 Million Customers Stolen

While we all were busy in the WannaCry ransomware menace, two separate data breaches have been reported, one in DocuSign, a major provider of electronic signature technology, and another in BELL, Canada’s largest telecommunications company. Canadian mobile phone, TV, and internet service provider...

WannaCry and the Executive Order

Last week, The White House released its long awaited Executive Order EO, Strengthening the Cybersecurity of Federal Networks and Critical Infrastructure, ironically enough during the same week we experienced the largest single ransomware attack that, by some estimates, has affected more than...

Low Risk Threat: DDoS Extortion Letters

Summary Adversaries calling themselves the Lizard Squad have been sending businesses extortion letters, demanding payment in bitcoin to prevent a Distributed Denial of Service DDoS or other attack against their applications. These letters have been sent to businesses across the globe and across...

Locky Ransomware Roars Back to Life Via Necurs Botnet

Cybercriminals behind the Locky ransomware and Necurs botnet are back in business. Last Friday researchers spotted both delivering nearly 35,000 emails in just a few hours, the first major Locky campaign researchers have seen in months, according to Cisco Talos. Researchers warn the latest Locky...

Police Arrest Man Potentially Linked to Group Threatening to Wipe Millions Of iPhones

The British authority has reportedly arrested a 20-years-old young man – potentially one of the member of a cyber criminal gang 'Turkish Crime Family' who threatened Apple last week to remotely wipe data from millions of iOS devices unless Apple pays a ransom of $75,000. The UK's National Crime...

Experts Doubt Hacker's Claim Of Millions Of Breached Apple Credentials

Security experts say they are skeptical that a group of hackers called Turkish Crime Family actually possess a cache of hundreds of millions of Apple iCloud account credentials. A more plausible explanation, they say, is that crooks used credential stuffing attacks to amass a limited number of...

Rook Security on Online Extortion

Mat Gangwer, CTO, and Tom Gorup, Security Operations Lead, at Rook Security talk to Mike Mimoso about the aggressive rise in online extortion and how it threatens not only data but physical safety. Download: RookSecurityonOnlineExtortion.mp3 Music by Chris Gonsalves...

Open Databases a Juicy Extortion Target

Recent attacks against insecure MongoDB, Hadoop and CouchDB installations represent a new phase in online extortion, born from ransomware’s roots with the promise of becoming a nemesis for years to come. “These types of attacks have grown from ones of opportunity to full-scale automated and...