An activity alert by the US Department of Homeland Security and the FBI this week warns organizations from multiple industries in critical infrastructures that they are a top target for SamSam ransomware, also known as MSIL/Samas.A, and provides a list of guidelines to help prevent and mitigate these attacks.
Security executives fear cyberattacks will heavily target critical infrastructures in the near future, but they don’t seem to be doing much about enforcing security policies that also cover IoT devices. Despite the major threat they pose, connected devices have so far been overlooked in security policies. It appears that in general, in spite of the increasing awareness of high-profile cyberattacks and threats, enterprises tend to look the other way rather than invest properly in a cybersecurity strategy.
In 2015, Russian hackers shut down Ukraine’s electrical grid after infecting the infrastructure with malware. It was only a matter of time until they would target the US power system. As of 2016, US critical operational infrastructures have been under siege by "Russian government cyber actors," as described by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI.
Many cybersecurity organizations are of the opinion that threat intelligence can prevent, or if not prevent entirely at least lessen, the impact of successful breaches.
There’s been a continuous increase in the use of Machine Learning but, despite the recent hype, the technology is not new. While researchers have been playing with artificial neural networks from as early as the 1950s, machine learning is not new even in the context of cybersecurity.
The findings of a new ISACA research report on the state of cyber security are quite sobering: a huge majority of the organizations the group surveyed for its study expect to be hit with a cyber attack this year, but many of them remain unprepared to defend against such attacks.
The latest data breach report from Verizon is out, and if you’re looking for good news about the cyber security landscape you might be disappointed.
Update 5/13/3017: Yesterday evening the WannaCryptor (WannaCry) ransomware family infected thousands of computers across the world. In just 24 hours, the number of infections has spiked to 185,000 machines in more than 100 countries. Analysis of the Bitcoin wallets hardcoded into the samples show that the group behind WannaCryptor managed to extort roughly $US 25,000 worth of Bitcoin.
A new family of ransomware called WannaCryptor has started targeting businesses in more than 70 countries around the world. Hospitals, telelcom companies or gas and utilities plants are just some of the verticals that suffered massive disruptions caused by data being held at ransom.
