to anonymous attackers through the digital currency Bitcoin . A Connecticut city has paidAttack.RansomUSD 2,000 to restore access to its computer system after a ransomware attackAttack.Ransom. West Haven officials said Thursday they paid the moneyAttack.Ransomto anonymous attackers through the digital currency bitcoin to unlock 23 servers and restore access to city data . The attackAttack.Ransomdisabled servers early Tuesday morning , and city officials say it was contained by 5:30 PM Wednesday . City attorney Lee Tiernan says officials initially did n't want to pay the ransomAttack.Ransom, but research showed it was the best course of action . The city says there 's no reason to believe data was compromisedAttack.Databreach. Employee pay was not affected . The US Department of Homeland Security says the attack came from outside the US . An investigation is ongoing .
An amount in Bitcoin ( BTC ) is what the Canadian town of Midland is said to have paidAttack.Ransomto regain access to its hacked computer systems . The ransomAttack.Ransomthat the Canadian town of Midland has paidAttack.Ransomto cyber criminals to have its servers unblocked was in the form of Bitcoin ( BTC ) , media source Global News reported last week , quoting a local spokesperson . How much Midland has paidAttack.Ransomin cryptocurrency , however , was not specified . On September 1 , the town in the Ontario province became a victim of a malware attack , as hackers managed to encrypt the information stored on several town systems , leaving them virtually unusable . Right after , Midland got a ransom demandAttack.Ransomto get decryption keys . The town authorities decided a few days later to pay the sum . “ Although not ideal , it is in our best interest to bring the system back online as quickly as possible . The Town had previously secured an insurance policy to cover such circumstances . Decryption efforts are underway , ” a statement on Midland ’ s web site reads .
An amount in Bitcoin ( BTC ) is what the Canadian town of Midland is said to have paidAttack.Ransomto regain access to its hacked computer systems . The ransomAttack.Ransomthat the Canadian town of Midland has paidAttack.Ransomto cyber criminals to have its servers unblocked was in the form of Bitcoin ( BTC ) , media source Global News reported last week , quoting a local spokesperson . How much Midland has paidAttack.Ransomin cryptocurrency , however , was not specified . On September 1 , the town in the Ontario province became a victim of a malware attack , as hackers managed to encrypt the information stored on several town systems , leaving them virtually unusable . Right after , Midland got a ransom demandAttack.Ransomto get decryption keys . The town authorities decided a few days later to pay the sum . “ Although not ideal , it is in our best interest to bring the system back online as quickly as possible . The Town had previously secured an insurance policy to cover such circumstances . Decryption efforts are underway , ” a statement on Midland ’ s web site reads .
Wasaga Beach has paidAttack.Ransompart of the ransomAttack.Ransomto hackers who took over the town 's computer system earlier this month . The computer ransomware attackAttack.Ransomstarted Sunday , April 29th . Staff discovered they could n't access town data when the arrived on Monday . CAO George Vadeboncoeur says some of the data has been retrieved , but he 's not saying how much money the town has had to payAttack.Ransomthe hackers . He says the town does n't actually know who the ransomware virus attackers are . He does say they appear to be in a time zone six hours different from ours , and English is not their first language . Vadeboncoeur says town council will get a report on the ransom paidAttack.Ransomat a meeting once the situation is resolved . He says he does n't know yet when that will be , but he says some of the town 's data has now been retrieved .
GREENFIELD — Hancock Health paidAttack.Ransoma $ 55,000 ransomAttack.Ransomto hackers to regain access to its computer systems , hospital officials said . Part of the health network had been held hostageAttack.Ransomsince late Thursday , when ransomware locked files including patient medical records . The hackers targeted more than 1,400 files , the names of every one temporarily changed to “ I ’ m sorry. ” They gave the hospital seven days to payAttack.Ransomor the files would be permanently encrypted , officials said . An analysis since the attack confirmed no personal patient information was takenAttack.Databreachby the hackers , believed to be located in eastern Europe , said Hancock Health CEO Steve Long . The affected files were backed up and could have been recovered , but restoring them would take days — maybe even weeks — and would be costly , Long said . From a business standpoint , paying a small ransomAttack.Ransommade more sense , he said . The hacker asked forAttack.Ransomfour bitcoins — a virtual currency used to make anonymous transactions that are nearly impossible to trace . At the time of the transfer , those four bitcoins were valued at about $ 55,000 .
VILLAGE OF NASHOTAH - The village recently paidAttack.Ransoman unidentified hacker a $ 2,000 ransomAttack.Ransomto decrypt its computer system after a hackAttack.Databreachin late November that left some residents ' personal information exposedAttack.Databreach. Village President Richard Lartz said Thursday , Dec 7 , that the hack `` totally encrypted '' Nashotah 's computer files , making them inaccessible to staff . He said the only information that was exposedAttack.Databreachduring the breachAttack.Databreachwere citizens ' names and driver 's license numbers , and possibly their addresses . Social Security numbers and other sensitive information was not compromisedAttack.Databreach. `` The only information that got outAttack.Databreachwas voter rolls , '' Lartz said , emphasizing that neither he nor village staff know whether that information was used or dispersedAttack.Databreachby the hacker .
Austal , which is based in Henderson , Western Australia , is one of the country 's largest shipbuilders ; it has built vessels for the U.S. Navy . The company , which is listed on Australia 's ASX stock exchange , announced the breach late Thursday . The announcement came just a day after a security researcher in France postedAttack.Databreachscreenshots on Twitter of the purported stolen data . Austal says the material is neither sensitive nor classified and that it has taken steps to secure its data systems. `` The data breachAttack.Databreachhas had no impact on Austal 's ongoing operations , '' the company says . Austal 's business in the United States is unaffected by this issue , as the computer systems are not linked . A spokesman for Austal contacted on Friday says he could n't offer further information on the incident . The breachAttack.DatabreachexposedAttack.Databreachship design drawings that are distributed to customers , fabrication subcontractors and suppliers , Austal says . It also exposedAttack.Databreach`` some staff email addresses and mobile phone numbers . '' Those individuals have been informed as well as a `` small number '' of other stakeholders directly impacted by the breach , the company reports . Austal has contacted the Australian Cyber Security Center and the Australian Federal Police . The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner , which enforces the country 's data protection regulations `` will be involved as required , '' Austal says . Companies are increasingly being subjected to ransomsAttack.Ransomby hackers after their networks have been breachedAttack.Databreach. RansomsAttack.Ransomput companies in tough positions : risk public exposure of potentially embarrassing data , or risk paying a ransomAttack.Ransomand still face a chance the data could be released anyway . Security experts and law enforcement generally advise against paying ransomsAttack.Ransom, even after incidents of file-encrypting malware . But some companies have viewed the situation as either a cost of doing business or a shorter route to recovery . Late last month in the U.S , the city of West Haven , Connecticut , paidAttack.Ransom$ 2,000 to unlock 23 servers that had been infected with ransomware ( see : Connecticut City Pays RansomAttack.RansomAfter Crypto-Locking Attack ) . The city 's attorney , Lee Tiernan , was quoted by the Associated Press as saying `` research showed it was the best course of action . '' If the city did n't have a backup file , it may have had little choice .
Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center paidAttack.Ransoma $ 17,000 ransomAttack.Ransomin bitcoin to a hacker who seized control of the hospital 's computer systems and would give back access only when the money was paidAttack.Ransom, the hospital 's chief executive said Wednesday . The assaultAttack.Ransomon Hollywood Presbyterian occurred Feb 5 , when hackers using malware infected the institution 's computers , preventing hospital staff from being able to communicate from those devices , said Chief Executive Allen Stefanek . The hacker demandedAttack.Ransom40 bitcoin , the equivalent of about $ 17,000 , he said . `` The malware locks systems by encrypting files and demanding ransomAttack.Ransomto obtain the decryption key . The quickest and most efficient way to restore our systems and administrative functions was to pay the ransomAttack.Ransomand obtain the decryption key , '' Stefanek said . `` In the best interest of restoring normal operations , we did this . '' The hospital said it alerted authorities and was able to regain control of all its computer systems by Monday , with the assistance of technology experts . Stefanek said patient care was never compromisedAttack.Databreach, nor were hospital records . Top hospital officials called the Los Angeles Police Department last week , according to police Lt John Jenal . Laura Eimiller , an FBI spokeswoman , said the bureau has taken over the hacking investigation but declined to discuss specifics of the case . Law enforcement sources told The Times that the hospital paid the ransomAttack.Ransombefore reaching out to law enforcement for assistance . The attack forced the hospital to return to pen and paper for its record-keeping .
The Pennsylvania Senate Democrats have been hitAttack.Ransomby a ransomware attackAttack.Ransomthat has locked senators and employees out of their computer network since the early morning hours of Friday , state officials told NBC News . In a statement , Sen. Jay Costa , the Democratic leader , said the Democrats were working with law enforcement agencies and Microsoft to resolve the problem . He did not say what payment has been demandedAttack.Ransomto unlock the data , or whether the attackers had suggested any political motive . In a ransomware attackAttack.Ransom, hackers inject a network with malware that typically encrypts important data , and then demand paymentAttack.Ransomin exchange for a key that releases the data . They threaten to destroy the data if they are n't paidAttack.Ransom. The Democratic senators in the state capital of Harrisburg are on their own computer network and there is no indication that other state agencies of the Republicans have been affected , said a state official who declined to be identified . The official said the Democrats had no idea whether they were targeted for any specific reason . A spokeswoman for the FBI was looking into whether that agency had been called in . A spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Democrats , Stacey Witalec , declined to say whether the data was backed up elsewhere or whether the attackers had identified themselves or any motive .
The average ransomware attackAttack.Ransomyielded $ 1,077 last year , new research shows , representing a 266 percent spike from a year earlier . The reason for the landmark year for hackers ? Many ransomware victims readily payAttack.Ransomthe price . The number of attacks , varieties of distinct malware and money lost ballooned as ransomware became one of the top tactics of attackers , according to new research from the security firm Symantec . Some of the most high-profile ransomware incidentsAttack.Ransomof the last year include San Francisco ’ s Muni getting hitAttack.Ransom, Washington D.C. ’ s police department being breachedAttack.Databreachjust before inauguration and a Los Angeles college payingAttack.Ransoma $ 28,000 ransomAttack.Ransom. Hoping to turn the tide against the billion-dollar ransomware industry , last year the FBI urged businesses to alert authorities and not pay upAttack.Ransom. Instead , most keep attacksAttack.Ransoma secret , paying offAttack.Ransomhackers 70 percent of the time . That behavior only increases the sweet spot for demandsAttack.Ransom, as criminals seek the highest possible ransomAttack.Ransomwhile trying to avoid the attention of law enforcement . Economists say hackers who apply more sophisticated pricing techniques “ could lead to dramatic increases in profits at relatively little costs . ” The highest demandAttack.Ransomseen in public during the last was $ 28,730 from MIRCOP ransomware . It ’ s not clear if anyone actually paid offAttack.Ransomthose specific hackers . In private , however , higher ransomsAttack.Ransomare finding success when hackers successfully target the right companies . An IBM Security study from December 2016 found that over half of the businesses they surveyed said they had already paidAttack.Ransomover $ 10,000 in ransomAttack.Ransomwhile 20 percent said they ’ d paidAttack.Ransomover $ 40,000 . Globally , 34 percent of victims end up paying ransomAttack.Ransom. American victims , however , pay at a rate of 64 percent , according to Norton . “ That ’ s a phenomenal number , ” Symantec ’ s Kevin Haley told CyberScoop . “ I always compare it to direct mail where if you get a 1 percent rate you ’ re doing really good . These guys get a 34 percent return rate . Extortion really paysAttack.Ransom. ” The twist of the knife comes when only 47 percent of victims who pay the ransomAttack.Ransomactually recover any files . “ If so many people are willing to pay the ransomAttack.Ransom, there ’ s no reason for the price to come down , ” Haley said . “ In fact , it ’ s only going to go up . We may see that average go even higher until that price ceiling is discovered when so many people aren ’ t willing to pay that much . But we haven ’ t hit it yet . ”
The average ransomware attackAttack.Ransomyielded $ 1,077 last year , new research shows , representing a 266 percent spike from a year earlier . The reason for the landmark year for hackers ? Many ransomware victims readily payAttack.Ransomthe price . The number of attacks , varieties of distinct malware and money lost ballooned as ransomware became one of the top tactics of attackers , according to new research from the security firm Symantec . Some of the most high-profile ransomware incidentsAttack.Ransomof the last year include San Francisco ’ s Muni getting hitAttack.Ransom, Washington D.C. ’ s police department being breachedAttack.Databreachjust before inauguration and a Los Angeles college payingAttack.Ransoma $ 28,000 ransomAttack.Ransom. Hoping to turn the tide against the billion-dollar ransomware industry , last year the FBI urged businesses to alert authorities and not pay upAttack.Ransom. Instead , most keep attacksAttack.Ransoma secret , paying offAttack.Ransomhackers 70 percent of the time . That behavior only increases the sweet spot for demandsAttack.Ransom, as criminals seek the highest possible ransomAttack.Ransomwhile trying to avoid the attention of law enforcement . Economists say hackers who apply more sophisticated pricing techniques “ could lead to dramatic increases in profits at relatively little costs . ” The highest demandAttack.Ransomseen in public during the last was $ 28,730 from MIRCOP ransomware . It ’ s not clear if anyone actually paid offAttack.Ransomthose specific hackers . In private , however , higher ransomsAttack.Ransomare finding success when hackers successfully target the right companies . An IBM Security study from December 2016 found that over half of the businesses they surveyed said they had already paidAttack.Ransomover $ 10,000 in ransomAttack.Ransomwhile 20 percent said they ’ d paidAttack.Ransomover $ 40,000 . Globally , 34 percent of victims end up paying ransomAttack.Ransom. American victims , however , pay at a rate of 64 percent , according to Norton . “ That ’ s a phenomenal number , ” Symantec ’ s Kevin Haley told CyberScoop . “ I always compare it to direct mail where if you get a 1 percent rate you ’ re doing really good . These guys get a 34 percent return rate . Extortion really paysAttack.Ransom. ” The twist of the knife comes when only 47 percent of victims who pay the ransomAttack.Ransomactually recover any files . “ If so many people are willing to pay the ransomAttack.Ransom, there ’ s no reason for the price to come down , ” Haley said . “ In fact , it ’ s only going to go up . We may see that average go even higher until that price ceiling is discovered when so many people aren ’ t willing to pay that much . But we haven ’ t hit it yet . ”
Three months on from the global WannaCry cyberattackAttack.Ransom, someone has withdrawn funds acquired when victims paid ransomsAttack.Ransom. Almost three months on from the WannaCry ransomware outbreakAttack.Ransom, those behind the global cyberattackAttack.Ransomhave finally cashed out their ransom paymentsAttack.Ransom. The WannaCry epidemic hitAttack.Ransomorganisations around the world in May , with the file-encrypting malware -- which used a leaked NSA exploit -- attackingAttack.RansomWindows systems . It infected over 300,000 PCs and crippling systems across the Americas , Europe , Russia , and China . The UK 's National Health Service was particularly badly hitAttack.Ransomby the attackAttack.Ransom, with hospitals and doctor 's surgeries knocked offline , and some services not restored until days after the ransomware hitAttack.Ransom. WannaCry continued to claim victims even after the initial outbreak : June saw Honda forced to shut down a factory due to an infection and speed cameras in Victoria , Australia also fell victim to the ransomware . While the attackAttack.Ransomwas certainly high profile , mistakes in the code meant many victims of WannaCryAttack.Ransomwere able to successfully unlock systems without giving into the demandsAttack.Ransomof hackers . A bot tracking ransom paymentsAttack.Ransomsays only 338 victims paidAttack.Ransomthe $ 300 bitcoin ransom demandAttack.Ransom- not exactly a large haul for an attack which infected hundreds of thousands of computers . In the months since the attackAttack.Ransom, the bitcoin wallets containing the money extortedAttack.Ransomby WannaCry were left untouched , but August 3 saw them suddenly start to be emptied . At the time of withdrawal , the value of the wallets totalled $ 140,000 thanks to changes in the valuation of bitcoin . Three separate withdrawals between 7.3 bitcoin ( $ 20,055 ) and 9.67 bitcoin ( $ 26,435 ) were made in the space of a minute at 4:10am BST , accounting for around half of the total value of the extorted funds . Five minutes later , three more withdrawals of between seven bitcoin ( $ 19.318 ) and 10 Bitcoin ( $ 27,514 ) were made in the space of another 60 seconds . Ten minutes later , a final withdrawal was made , emptying the remaining bitcoin from the WannaCry wallets . There 's no official confirmation of who carried out the attack , but both private cybersecurity firms and investigating government agencies have pointed to North Korea as the culprit . A month after WannaCryAttack.Ransom, companies around the world found themselves being hitAttack.Ransomby another fast-spreading cyberattack in the form of Petya , which like WannaCry is still causing issues for some of those affected . Unfortunately , the success of WannaCry and Petya infection rates means many cybercriminal groups are attempting to copy the worm-like features of these viruses for their own ends .
HACKERS connected with last week ’ s devastating NotPetya cyber attack have offered help — but it comes at a price . HACKERS connected with the ransomware that devastatedAttack.Ransomoverseas banks , power stations , and even Cadbury factories in Australia last week have issued a new ransom demandAttack.Ransom— and it ’ s for much more money than before . The new ransom note was published in two places on the Dark Web and demanded a paymentAttack.Ransomof 100 Bitcoins , or about $ 340,000 , in return for a private security key that could decrypt any file locked by the Petya/Goldeneye malware . The hackers even opened a chat room and offered to decrypt one file for potential buyers as proof that the key would work , though it ’ s not clear whether this was a bluff . The demandAttack.Ransomwas a significant increase on the ransomware ’ s initial requestAttack.Ransomfor just less than $ 400 in Bitcoin when the malware was launched in the Ukraine last Tuesday before rapidly spreading through computer networks worldwide . Bitcoin transactions show its creators were able to access more than $ 13,000 paidAttack.Ransomby victims , however , even though their email address was suspended by its German provider . It ’ s not known whether victims who paid the ransomAttack.Ransomreceived a security key to unlock their files . The dangerous ransomware affected as many as 16,000 computers in 64 countries , according to security firm Clavister , and crippled the operations of several European companies . Some Australian businesses were also affected through their international connections , including Cadbury factories in Tasmania and Victoria , TNT Express courier services , and the offices of law firm DLA Piper . The demandAttack.Ransomor money came amid growing speculation that the ransomware was not designed to make a profit , but was a form of digital terrorism or industrial espionage . ESET senior research fellow Nick FitzGerald said the Petya malware was designed to kill computers first , and ask for moneyAttack.Ransomsecond . “ ( Being ransomware ) was a mechanism to help hide the trail of a gang of cyber terrorists or spies , ” he said . Mr FitzGerald advised victims not to pay any ransomAttack.Ransomas there was very little chance they would be able to unlock their files .
A new form of ransomware has emerged which is , unusually , being distributed by two separate exploit kits -- one of which was thought to have disappeared -- and demands paymentAttack.Ransomin a lesser-known form of cryptocurrency . First seen on January 26 , GandCrab has been spotted being distributed by two exploit kits , RIG EK and GrandSoft EK . According to researchers at security company Malwarebytes , it 's unusual in itself for ransomware to be pushed using an exploit kit , with such tactics usually reserved for trojans and coin-miners . An exploit kit is used by cybercriminals to take advantage of vulnerabilities in systems in order to distribute malware and perform other malicious activities . In contrast , ransomware is usually delivered by spam email . The only other form of ransomware known to be consistently distributed with an exploit kit is Magniber . GandCrab is distributed via the RIG exploit kit , which uses vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer and Flash Player to launch JavaScript , Flash , and VBscript-based attacks to distribute malware to users . It 's possible that RIG spreads GandCrab to victims using malvertising on compromised websites , in an attack method similar to that used by Princess ransomware . GandCrab is also distributed using GrandSoft , an exploit kit which first appeared in 2012 , but was thought to have disappeared . The GrandSoft EK takes advantage of a vulnerability in the Java Runtime Environment which allows attackers to remotely execute code , and in this case is used to distribute GandCrab . Once the payload has been dropped and run on a compromised system , GandCrab , for the most part , acts like any other form of ransomware , encrypting Windows files using an RSA algorithm and demanding paymentAttack.Ransomfor the 'GandCrab Decryptor ' required to unlock the files . The encrypted files gain a .GDCB extension , with the encryption loop designed in such a way it will eventually affect every file on the drive . However , unlike many forms of ransomware , GandCrab does n't demand paymentAttack.Ransomin bitcoin , but rather in a form of cryptocurrency called Dash . Those behind the ransomware demandAttack.Ransom1.5 Dash ( listed on the note as $ 1,200 , although the fluctuating prices mean it 's ever changing ) as a ransomAttack.Ransom, a price which doubles to three Dash ( $ 2,400 ) if the price is n't paidAttack.Ransomwithin a few days . The demandAttack.Ransomfor payment in Dash represents the latest example of ransomware distributors attempting to move away from bitcoin and onto other cryptocurrency , for reasons ranging from increased privacy and security to other forms of blockchain-based virtual currency being less popular than bitcoin and therefore quicker to process . There 's currently no means of decrypting GandCrab ransomware files for free at this time , meaning the best way to avoid falling victim is to ensure all software updates and patches have been appliedVulnerability-related.PatchVulnerabilityto ensure the vulnerabilities exploitedVulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerabilityby the exploit kits ca n't be used to distribute ransomware from infected sites .
State-owned computers in Colorado are being held for ransomAttack.Ransom. According to the governor ’ s office , some Colorado Department of Transportation computers were first infected with ransomware on Wednesday . Security tools detected the problem . David McCurdy , the chief technology officer in Colorado , said in a statement that staff quarantined the virus to prevent it from spreading . The ransomware demanded a paymentAttack.Ransomin bitcoin , Brandi Simmons , a state spokesperson , said . The state tells Next they have never paidAttack.Ransomransomware criminals in the past , and they have no intention of starting now . The FBI and other security agencies , as well as Governor Hickenlooper ’ s Office of Information Technology , are trying to find the source of the issue - whether it be hacking or human error . Infected servers have been taken offline , Simmons said . She could not say how many computers were affected , but all of the critical systems are still in use . The state is not yet sure what , if any impact , this will have .
Colorado investigators call in FBI , work through the night . Colorado Department of Transportation employees spent a second day offline Thursday as security officials investigated the damage done by a ransomware virus that hijacked computer files and demanded paymentAttack.Ransomin bitcoin for their safe return . The state ’ s Office of Information Technology , which reached out to the FBI for assistance , are still investigating the attackAttack.Ransomand have not paidAttack.Ransoma cent to attackers — nor do they plan to , said Brandi Simmons , an OIT spokeswoman . “ No payments have been made or will be made . We are still investigating to see whether or not files were damaged or recoveredAttack.Databreach, ” she said in an email Thursday . On Wednesday morning , CDOT shut down more than 2,000 employee computers while security officials investigated the attack . The malicious code was a variant of ransomware known as SamSam , Simmons said . McAfee , the security software used by CDOT computers , providedVulnerability-related.PatchVulnerabilitya software patch on Wednesday to stop the execution of the ransomware . “ This ransomware virus was a variant and the state worked with its antivirus software provider to implementVulnerability-related.PatchVulnerabilitya fix today . The state has robust backup and security tools and has no intention of paying ransomwareAttack.Ransom. Teams will continue to monitor the situation closely and will be working into the night , ” said David McCurdy , chief technology officer , Governor ’ s Office of Information Technology , in a statement on Wednesday . He added : “ OIT , FBI and other security agencies are working together to determine a root cause analysis. ” SamSam last showed up in January after targeting the healthcare industry . It encrypted files and renamed them “ I ’ m sorry , ” according to a report with security firm TrendMicro . One hospital , Hancock Health in Indiana , paidAttack.Ransom$ 55,000 to get its files back . TrendMicro said the attackAttack.Ransomwasn ’ t due to an employee opening an infected email , but hackers gained access remotely using a vendor ’ s user name and password . “ No one is back online . What we ’ re doing is working offline . All our critical services are still online — cameras , variable message boards , CoTrip , alerts on traffic . They are running on separate systems , ” Ford said . “ The message I ’ m sharing ( with employees ) is CDOT operated for a long time without computers so we ’ ll use pen and paper. ” There ’ s only one Mac computer in the office and it wasn ’ t turned on , Ford said , because “ We ’ re not messing around today . ”
Colorado investigators call in FBI , work through the night . Colorado Department of Transportation employees spent a second day offline Thursday as security officials investigated the damage done by a ransomware virus that hijacked computer files and demanded paymentAttack.Ransomin bitcoin for their safe return . The state ’ s Office of Information Technology , which reached out to the FBI for assistance , are still investigating the attackAttack.Ransomand have not paidAttack.Ransoma cent to attackers — nor do they plan to , said Brandi Simmons , an OIT spokeswoman . “ No payments have been made or will be made . We are still investigating to see whether or not files were damaged or recoveredAttack.Databreach, ” she said in an email Thursday . On Wednesday morning , CDOT shut down more than 2,000 employee computers while security officials investigated the attack . The malicious code was a variant of ransomware known as SamSam , Simmons said . McAfee , the security software used by CDOT computers , providedVulnerability-related.PatchVulnerabilitya software patch on Wednesday to stop the execution of the ransomware . “ This ransomware virus was a variant and the state worked with its antivirus software provider to implementVulnerability-related.PatchVulnerabilitya fix today . The state has robust backup and security tools and has no intention of paying ransomwareAttack.Ransom. Teams will continue to monitor the situation closely and will be working into the night , ” said David McCurdy , chief technology officer , Governor ’ s Office of Information Technology , in a statement on Wednesday . He added : “ OIT , FBI and other security agencies are working together to determine a root cause analysis. ” SamSam last showed up in January after targeting the healthcare industry . It encrypted files and renamed them “ I ’ m sorry , ” according to a report with security firm TrendMicro . One hospital , Hancock Health in Indiana , paidAttack.Ransom$ 55,000 to get its files back . TrendMicro said the attackAttack.Ransomwasn ’ t due to an employee opening an infected email , but hackers gained access remotely using a vendor ’ s user name and password . “ No one is back online . What we ’ re doing is working offline . All our critical services are still online — cameras , variable message boards , CoTrip , alerts on traffic . They are running on separate systems , ” Ford said . “ The message I ’ m sharing ( with employees ) is CDOT operated for a long time without computers so we ’ ll use pen and paper. ” There ’ s only one Mac computer in the office and it wasn ’ t turned on , Ford said , because “ We ’ re not messing around today . ”
( TNS ) — Last month , employees at the Colorado Department of Transportation were greeted by a message on their computer screens similar to this : “ All your files are encrypted with RSA-2048 encryption . … It ’ s not possible to recover your files without private key . … You must sendAttack.Ransomus 0.7 BitCoin for each affected PC or 3 BitCoins to receive ALL Private Keys for ALL affected PC ’ s. ” CDOT isn’t payingAttack.Ransom, but others have . In fact , so-called ransomware has become one of the most lucrative criminal enterprises in the U.S. and internationally , with the FBI estimating total paymentsAttack.Ransomare nearing $ 1 billion . Hackers use ransomware to encrypt computer files , making them unreadable without a secret key , and then demand digital currencyAttack.Ransomlike bitcoin if victims want the files back — and many victims are falling for that promise . Ransomware infects more than 100,000 computers around the world every day and paymentsAttack.Ransomare approaching $ 1 billion , said U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein during the October 2017 Cambridge Cyber Summit , citing FBI statistics . A study by researchers at Google , Chainalysis , University of California San Diego and NYU Tandon School of Engineering estimated that from 2016 to mid 2017 , victims paidAttack.Ransom$ 25 million in ransomAttack.Ransomto get files back . And one out of five businesses that do pay the ransomAttack.Ransomdon ’ t get their data back , according to 2016 report by Kaspersky Labs . Last spring , the Erie County Medical Center in New York was attackedAttack.Ransomby SamSam due to a misconfigured web server , according to The Buffalo News . Because it had backed up its files , the hospital decided not to payAttack.Ransomthe estimated $ 44,000 ransomAttack.Ransom. It took six weeks to get back to normal at a recovery cost of nearly $ 10 million . More recently in January , the new SamSam variant sneakedAttack.Ransominto Indiana hospital Hancock Health , which decided to payAttack.Ransom4 bitcoin , or about $ 55,000 , in ransomAttack.Ransom. Attackers gained entry by using a vendor ’ s username and password on a Thursday night . The hospital was back online by Monday morning . Colorado security officials are still investigating the CDOT ransomware attackAttack.Ransomthat took 2,000 employee computers offline for more than a week . They don ’ t plan to pay the ransomAttack.Ransombut offered few details about the attackAttack.Ransomother than confirming it was a variant of the SamSam ransomware . Security researchers with Cisco ’ s Talos , which shared the SamSam message with The Denver Post , reported in January that the new SamSam variant had so far collected 30.4 bitcoin , or about $ 325,217 . The reality is that people need to be smarter about computer security . That means patching software , using anti-malware software , and not sharing passwords and accounts . And not opening files , emails or links from unfamiliar sources — and sometimes familiar sources . Webroot doesn ’ t have an official stance on whether to pay a ransomAttack.Ransomto get files back , but Dufour says it ’ s a personal decision . Cybersecurity companies like Webroot can advise whether the hacker has a reputation for restoring files after payment is receivedAttack.Ransom. “ Paying a ransomAttack.Ransomto a cybercriminal is an incredibly personal decision . It ’ s easy to say not to negotiate with criminals when it ’ s not your family photos or business data that you ’ ll never see again . Unfortunately , if you want your data back , paying the ransomAttack.Ransomis often the only option , ” Dufour said . “ However , it ’ s important to know that there are some strains of ransomware that have coding and encryption errors . For these cases , even paying the ransomAttack.Ransomwon ’ t decrypt your data . I recommend checking with a computer security expert before paying any ransomAttack.Ransom. ”
An Indiana hospital paid a ransomAttack.Ransomof $ 55,000 to get rid of ransomware that had infected its systems and was hindering operations last week . The infection took root last week , on Thursday , January 11 , when attackers breached the network of Hancock Health , a regional hospital in the city of Greenfield , Indiana . Attackers deployed the SamSam ransomware , which encrypted files and renamed them with the phrase `` I ’ m sorry '' , according to a local newspaper who broke the news last week . Hospital operations were affected right away . IT staff intervened and took down the entire network , asking employees to shut down all computers to avoid the ransomware from spreading to other PCs . By Friday , the next day , the hospital was littered with posters asking employees to shut down any computer until the incident was resolved . While some news sites reported that the hospital shut down operations , medical and management staff continued their work , but with pen and paper instead of computers . Patients continued to receive care at the hospital 's premise . Hospital had backups but decides to pay ransom demandAttack.Ransom. The hospital said that despite having backups it opted to pay the ransom demandAttack.Ransomof 4 Bitcoin , which was worth around $ 55,000 at the time the hospital paidAttack.Ransomthe sum , on Saturday morning . Hospital management told local press that restoring from backups was not a solution as it would have taken days and maybe even weeks to have all systems up and running . Hence , they decided paying the ransomAttack.Ransomwas quicker . By Monday , all systems were up and running , and the hospital released a short statement on its site admitting to the incident , but with very few other details . While the hospital has not confirmed the typical SamSam attack scenario , they did say the infection was not the case of an employee opening a malware-infected email . The FBI has long asked companies and individuals affected by ransomware to report any infections via the IC3 portal so the Bureau can get a better grasp of the threat and have the legal reasons to go after such groups .
Hackers logged into the hospital ’ s remote access portal using a third-party vendor ’ s username and password . Greenfield , Indiana-based Hancock Health paidAttack.Ransomhackers 4 bitcoin or about $ 47,000 to unlock its network on Saturday , after the health system fell victim to a ransomware attackAttack.Ransomon Thursday night . Hackers compromisedAttack.Databreacha third-party vendor ’ s administrative account to the hospital ’ s remote-access portal and launched SamSam ransomware . The virus infected a number of the hospital ’ s IT system and , according to local reports , the malware targeted over 1,400 files and changed the name of each to “ I ’ m sorry. ” Hancock officials followed its incident response and crisis management plan and contacted legal representation and outside security firm immediately following the discovery of the attack . Hospital leadership also contacted the FBI for advisory assistance . The incident was contained by Friday and officials said the next focus was recovery . Hancock Health was given just seven days to pay the ransomAttack.Ransom. While officials said Hancock could have recovered the affected files from backups , it would have taken days or possibly weeks to do so . And it would have been more expensive . “ We were in a very precarious situation at the time of the attack , ” Hancock Health CEO Steve Long said in a statement . “ With the ice and snow storm at hand , coupled with one of the worst flu seasons in memory , we wanted to recover our systems in the quickest way possible and avoid extending the burden toward other hospitals of diverting patients . Restoring from backup was considered , though we made the deliberate decision to pay the ransomAttack.Ransomto expedite our return to full operations. ” Hackers released the files early Saturday after they retrieved the bitcoins . The hospital ’ s critical systems were restored to normal function on Monday . The forensic analysis found patient data was not transferredAttack.Databreachoutside of the hospital ’ s network , and the FBI confirmed the motivation for SamSam hackers is ransom paymentAttack.Ransom, not to harvestAttack.Databreachpatient data . The virus did not impact any equipment used to treat patients . However , the hospital ’ s patient portal was down during the security incident . After recovery , officials asked employees to reset passwords and implemented a security feature that could detect similar attacks in the future . The breachAttack.Databreachshould serve as a wake-up call that ransomware attacksAttack.Ransomcan happen . However , it ’ s important to note the FBI , the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and a laundry list of security experts have long stressed that organizations should not pay ransomsAttack.Ransomto hackers . While the hackers returned the files to Hancock , there was no guarantee that would happen . For example , Kansas Heart Hospital paid a ransomAttack.Ransomin May 2016 , and the hackers kept the files and demanded another paymentAttack.Ransom. The hospital declined to payAttack.Ransoma second time . Secondly , when an organization paysAttack.Ransom, hackers place the business on a list of those willing to pay the ransomAttack.Ransomand can expect to be hitAttack.Ransomagain in the future . “ There are lists out there , if you pay once , you may end up having to pay again because you ’ ve been marked as an organization that will pay , ” said CynergisTek CEO Mac McMillan .
In wake of an attack on computers at Colorado ’ s DOT , experts at Webroot shed light on ransomware Last month , employees at the Colorado Department of Transportation were greeted by a message on their computer screens similar to this : “ All your files are encrypted with RSA-2048 encryption . … It ’ s not possible to recover your files without private key . … You must sendAttack.Ransomus 0.7 BitCoin for each affected PC or 3 BitCoins to receive ALL Private Keys for ALL affected PC ’ s. ” CDOT isn ’ t payingAttack.Ransom, but others have . In fact , so-called ransomware has become one of the most lucrative criminal enterprises in the U.S. and internationally , with the FBI estimating total paymentsAttack.Ransomare nearing $ 1 billion . Hackers use ransomware to encrypt computer files , making them unreadable without a secret key , and then demand digital currencyAttack.Ransomlike bitcoin if victims want the files back — and many victims are falling for that promise . To better understand how ransomware works and how it has spread so effectively , The Denver Post talked with Broomfield anti-malware company Webroot , which got its start in the late 1990s cleansing computer viruses from personal computers . “ The end goal is just to put ransomware on the computer because right now the most successful way for cybercriminals to make money is with ransomingAttack.Ransomyour files , ” said Tyler Moffitt , a senior threat research analyst at Webroot . Ransomware infects more than 100,000 computers around the world every day and paymentsAttack.Ransomare approaching $ 1 billion , said U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein during the October 2017 Cambridge Cyber Summit , citing FBI statistics . A study by researchers at Google , Chainalysis , University of California San Diego and NYU Tandon School of Engineering estimated that from 2016 to mid 2017 , victims paidAttack.Ransom$ 25 million in ransomAttack.Ransomto get files back . And one out of five businesses that do pay the ransomAttack.Ransomdon ’ t get their data back , according to 2016 report by Kaspersky Labs . It ’ s a growing business for cybercriminals . And whether to pay or not is something each user or company must decide . Last spring , the Erie County Medical Center in New York was attackedAttack.Ransomby SamSam due to a misconfigured web server , according to The Buffalo News . Because it had backed up its files , the hospital decided not to payAttack.Ransomthe estimated $ 44,000 ransomAttack.Ransom. It took six weeks to get back to normal at a recovery cost of nearly $ 10 million . More recently in January , the new SamSam variant sneakedAttack.Ransominto Indiana hospital Hancock Health , which decided to payAttack.Ransom4 bitcoin , or about $ 55,000 , in ransomAttack.Ransom. Attackers gained entry by using a vendor ’ s username and password on a Thursday night . The hospital was back online by Monday morning . Other times , malware isn ’ t so obvious . Some propagate when user visits infected websites . A trojan named Poweliks injected bad code into vulnerable programs , like an unpatched Internet Explorer . Poweliks crept into the Windows registry to force the computer to do all sorts of nasty things , from demanding a ransomAttack.Ransomto joining a click-fraud bot network to click ads without the user even realizing it . There also are booby-trapped ads , known as malvertising . They get into computers by , again , targeting flawed software and injecting malicious code . This has targeted programs like unpatched Adobe Flash Player , Java or other runtime software , or software that runs online all the time .
Federal officials , Microsoft and Cisco are working with the city of Atlanta to resolve the attackAttack.Ransom, but Atlanta 's mayor wo n't say if the city paidAttack.Ransomthe $ 51,000 ransomAttack.Ransom. As of Saturday , Atlanta officials and federal partners were still “ working around the clock ” to resolve the ransomware attackAttack.Ransomon city computers that occurred around 5 a.m. on Thursday , March 22 , and encrypted some financial and person data . As @ Cityofatlanta officials & federal partners continue working around the clock to resolve issues related to the ransomware cyber attackAttack.Ransomlaunched against the City , solid waste & other DPW operations are not impacted . — ATLPublicWorks ( @ ATLPublicWorks ) March 24 , 2018 On Thursday , the official investigation included “ the FBI , U.S. Department of Homeland Security , Cisco cybersecurity officials and Microsoft to determine what information has been accessedAttack.Databreachand how to resolve the situation. ” A city employee sent WXIA a screenshot of the ransom demandAttack.Ransom, which included a pay-per-computer optionAttack.Ransomof $ 6,800 or an option to payAttack.Ransom$ 51,000 to unlock the entire system . CBS 46 reported that the ransom demandAttack.Ransomand instruction said : Send .8 bitcoins for each computer or 6 bitcoins for all of the computers . ( That 's the equivalent of around $ 51,000 . ) After the .8 bitcoin is sent , leave a comment on their website with the provided host name . They ’ ll then reply to the comment with a decryption software . When you run that , all of the encrypted files will be recovered . On Friday , March 23 , city employees were handed a printed notice as they walked through the front doors . They were told not to turn on their computers until the issue was resolved . Officials were still unsure who was behind the attack . Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms advised city employees and customers to monitor their personal information , although there was no evidence to show customer or employee data was compromisedAttack.Databreach. Mayor Bottoms clarified what services had not been impacted and were still available to residents and which ones had been impacted . Mayor Bottoms will not say if Atlanta intends to pay the ransom demandAttack.Ransom, saying , “ We will be looking for guidance from , specifically , our federal partners on how to best navigate the best course of action. ” During a press conference , Bottoms said , “ What we want to make sure of is that we aren ’ t putting a Band-Aid on a gaping wound. ” She then turned the press conference over to Richard Cox , the City of Atlanta 's chief operations officer ; the poor dude is brand new to serving as Atlanta ’ s COO . He confirmed the existence of the ransom demandAttack.Ransombut would not reveal the contents .
INDIANAPOLIS — An Indiana hospital said it paidAttack.Ransoma $ 50,000 ransomAttack.Ransomto hackers who hijacked patient data . The ransomware attackAttack.Ransomaccessed the computers of Hancock Health in Greenfield through an outside vendor 's account Thursday . It quickly infected the system by locking out data and changing the names of more than 1,400 files to `` I 'm sorry . '' The virus demandedAttack.Ransomfour bitcoins in exchange for unlocking the data , which included patient medical records and company emails . The hospital paidAttack.Ransomthe amount , about $ 50,000 at the time , early Saturday morning , said Rob Matt , senior vice president and chief strategy officer . `` It was n't an easy decision , '' Matt said . `` When you weigh the cost of delivering high-quality care ... versus not paying and bearing the consequences of a new system . '' The data started unlocking soon after the money was transferred , Matt said . `` The amount of the ransomAttack.Ransomwas reasonable in respect to the cost of continuing down time and not being able to care for patients , '' Matt said . Hancock Health includes about two dozen health care facilities , including Hancock Regional Hospital in Greenfield , about 15 miles east of Indianapolis . The health system said in a news release that patient data was not compromisedAttack.Databreach. Life support and other critical hospital services were not affected , and patient safety was never at risk . Ransomware is a growing digital extortion technique that affected tens of thousands of Americans in 2016 , USA TODAY reported . Criminals use various phishing methodsAttack.Phishingthrough emails or bogus links to infect victims with malicious software . The virus infects the computer network by encrypting files or locking down the entire system . Victims log on and receive a message telling them the files have been hijacked and to get the files back they will have to payAttack.Ransom. Hospitals are a frequent target of these attacks . In May , a ransomware virus affected more than 200,000 victims in 150 countries , including more than 20 % of hospitals in the United Kingdom . That attack was later traced to North Korea . Hancock Health said it worked with the FBI and hired an Indianapolis cybersecurity expert for advice on how to respond to the attack . The systems were back Monday after paying the ransomAttack.Ransom. “ We were in a very precarious situation at the time of the attack , '' Hancock Health CEO Steve Long said in a statement . `` With the ice and snowstorm at hand , coupled with the one of the worst flu seasons in memory , we wanted to recover our systems in the quickest way possible . '' Hospital officials could have retrieved back up files , but Long said they feared restoring the hijacked data would take too long . `` We made the deliberate decision , ” Long said , `` to pay the ransomAttack.Ransomto expedite our return to full operations . ''
INDIANAPOLIS — An Indiana hospital said it paidAttack.Ransoma $ 50,000 ransomAttack.Ransomto hackers who hijacked patient data . The ransomware attackAttack.Ransomaccessed the computers of Hancock Health in Greenfield through an outside vendor 's account Thursday . It quickly infected the system by locking out data and changing the names of more than 1,400 files to `` I 'm sorry . '' The virus demandedAttack.Ransomfour bitcoins in exchange for unlocking the data , which included patient medical records and company emails . The hospital paidAttack.Ransomthe amount , about $ 50,000 at the time , early Saturday morning , said Rob Matt , senior vice president and chief strategy officer . `` It was n't an easy decision , '' Matt said . `` When you weigh the cost of delivering high-quality care ... versus not paying and bearing the consequences of a new system . '' The data started unlocking soon after the money was transferred , Matt said . `` The amount of the ransomAttack.Ransomwas reasonable in respect to the cost of continuing down time and not being able to care for patients , '' Matt said . Hancock Health includes about two dozen health care facilities , including Hancock Regional Hospital in Greenfield , about 15 miles east of Indianapolis . The health system said in a news release that patient data was not compromisedAttack.Databreach. Life support and other critical hospital services were not affected , and patient safety was never at risk . Ransomware is a growing digital extortion technique that affected tens of thousands of Americans in 2016 , USA TODAY reported . Criminals use various phishing methodsAttack.Phishingthrough emails or bogus links to infect victims with malicious software . The virus infects the computer network by encrypting files or locking down the entire system . Victims log on and receive a message telling them the files have been hijacked and to get the files back they will have to payAttack.Ransom. Hospitals are a frequent target of these attacks . In May , a ransomware virus affected more than 200,000 victims in 150 countries , including more than 20 % of hospitals in the United Kingdom . That attack was later traced to North Korea . Hancock Health said it worked with the FBI and hired an Indianapolis cybersecurity expert for advice on how to respond to the attack . The systems were back Monday after paying the ransomAttack.Ransom. “ We were in a very precarious situation at the time of the attack , '' Hancock Health CEO Steve Long said in a statement . `` With the ice and snowstorm at hand , coupled with the one of the worst flu seasons in memory , we wanted to recover our systems in the quickest way possible . '' Hospital officials could have retrieved back up files , but Long said they feared restoring the hijacked data would take too long . `` We made the deliberate decision , ” Long said , `` to pay the ransomAttack.Ransomto expedite our return to full operations . ''
The email didn ’ t just seem innocent , it also seemed familiar to the accounts payable employee at MacEwan University in Edmonton . It was from one of the local construction firms the public institution deals with , logo and all . There was new bank account information —could accounts payable please change it ? The staff and this supposed vendor communicated back and forth , from late June until a few weeks ago , in early August . One university employee was involved in this correspondence at first ; two more were added . Then vendor payments went through , as scheduled : $ 1.9 million from MacEwan accounts on August 10 . Another $ 22,000 were transferred seven days later . Finally , $ 9.9 million went to this new bank account on August 19 , a Saturday . Wednesday morning , for the first time in this episode , came a phone call . The Edmonton-area vendor wanted to know why it never got its payments . The massive fraud had already been perpetrated , $ 11.8 million winding its way into a TD bank account in Montreal and much of it then wired overseas , a university spokesman says . Investigators have traced $ 11.4 million of the money and frozen the suspect accounts in Quebec and Hong Kong . The school is pursuing civil legal action to recover the money . “ The status of the balance of the funds is unknown at the time , ” a MacEwan statement said about the other $ 400,000 . There ’ s likely not a person reading this online who hasn ’ t received a phishing attackAttack.Phishing, in which someone pretending to beAttack.Phishinga bank sendsAttack.Phishingan email or text message , hoping to trickAttack.Phishingyou into enter or re-enter account information or a credit card number . What hit MacEwan was a spear phishing attackAttack.Phishing, in which scammers impersonateAttack.Phishinga client or associate of the individual . In this case , the fraudster had cut-and-pasted the actual vendor ’ s logo , MacEwan spokesman David Beharry said . A phishing attacker will often cast several luresAttack.Phishing; in this case , investigators said 14 different Edmonton-area construction sites or firms were impersonatedAttack.Phishingas part of this attempt . The successful trickAttack.Phishingled to financial transfers equivalent to more than five per cent of the publicly funded school ’ s 2016 operating budget , according to records . This inflicted vastly more damage than the last well-documented online scam to successfully target an Alberta post-secondary school : last year , University of Calgary paidAttack.Ransom$ 20,000 in what ’ s known as a ransomware attackAttack.Ransom, in which cyberattackers manage to lock or encrypt network data until the victim pays upAttack.Ransom. While MacEwan is confident it can recoup the amounts already frozen , it will also incur legal fees on three continents as it tries to do so , Beharry says . Edmonton ’ s second-largest university knew enough about this problem to launch its own phishing awareness campaign last school year for staff and students , posters and all . Now , the school itself will become a cautionary tale about the perils and pratfalls of spear phishing cyberattacksAttack.Phishing. With this ugly incident , MacEwan University becomes a cautionary tale of another sort : financial controls . These were not high-level employees ensnared by this phishing attackAttack.Phishing, the school spokesman says , though he did not identify them or clarify how the three employees were involved . From now on , one fraud and $ 11.8 million later , such vendor banking information changes will need to go through a second and third level of approval at MacEwan before the final clicks or keystrokes occur .
Six weeks after ransomware forced Colorado Department of Transportation ’ s back-end operations offline , the agency is back to 80 percent functionality — at an estimated cost of up to $ 1.5 million , according to the state . Colorado officials said they never caved to the attacker ’ s demands to pay bitcoinAttack.Ransomin order to recover encrypted computer files . But clearing each computer took time and additional resources — including the Colorado National Guard — to investigate , contain and recover . “ We were able to recover from the SamSam attack relatively quickly due to our robust backup plan and our segmentation strategies , ” Brandi Simmons , a spokesperson for Colorado ’ s Office of Information Technology , said in an email . “ We are still capturing costs associated with the incident , but our estimate is between $ 1M and $ 1.5M. ” What started with a core team of 25 IT employees , Simmons said , ballooned to 150 “ during the peak of the incident ” — March 2-9 . She added that others included CDOT , the FBI , state emergency operations and private companies . The million-dollar estimate includes only overtime pay and other unexpected costs . The state ’ s new backup system prevented data loss , but personal data on employees ’ computers may not be recovered . The cyberattack started around Feb 21 when a variant of the SamSam ransomware hijacked CDOT computer files . CDOT shut down more than 2,000 computers . Its employees had to use personal devices to check email . The state did not share the value of bitcoin that attackers demandedAttack.Ransom. Elsewhere , SamSam attacked the city of Atlanta , debilitating computer systems that residents used to pay traffic tickets , report potholes and access Wi-Fi at the airport . The city hasn ’ t issued a public update since March 30 , and a city spokesman said Thursday there is nothing new to share . Attackers demandedAttack.Ransom$ 51,000 worth of bitcoin . Asked whether Atlanta has paid the ransomAttack.Ransom, spokeswoman Anne Torres said : “ Unfortunately , we can not comment further on the ransomAttack.Ransom. ” The rise of ransomware attacksAttack.Ransomhas caused some to wonder whether it ’ s worth paying to avoid business outages — Hancock Health in Indiana paidAttack.Ransom$ 55,000 to get its files back . Dan Likarish , a computer professor at Denver ’ s Regis University , said there ’ s still a good reason not to do it . “ If you pay the ransomAttack.Ransom, you ’ re supporting the criminal , ” said Likarish , adding there ’ s also no guarantee the attacker will return computer files intact . “ The weasel answer ? It ’ s a risk mitigation . That ’ s the way we label ourselves . We talk to upper management , present the business case that we ’ ve identified the problem , let ’ s just pay . That ’ s what a lot of hospitals have done . It ’ s not unusual to pay for the key and go about your business . It depends on how sophisticated your security staff is . If you don ’ t have it , what do you do ? You ’ ve got to keep things running. ” Likarish said he was able to help with efforts to contain the CDOT attack and was in awe at how the state ’ s IT office swooped in and took command . While IT staff had already updated its own computer operations , not every state agency is on the same system , including CDOT . “ People are listening to them now , ” Likarish said .
The city has spent the past two weeks restoring online services disruptedAttack.Ransomby ransomware that held encrypted data hostage . Soon after Atlanta City Auditor Amanda Noble logged onto her work computer the morning of March 22 , she knew something was wrong . The icons on her desktop looked different—in some cases replaced with black rectangles—and she noticed many of the files on her desktop had been renamed with “ weapologize ” or “ imsorry ” extensions . Noble called the city ’ s chief information security officer to report the problem and left a message . Next , she called the help desk and was put on hold for a while . “ At that point , I realized that I wasn ’ t the only one in the office with computer problems , ” Noble says . Those computer problems were part of a high-profile “ransomware” cyberattackAttack.Ransomon the City of Atlanta that has lasted nearly two weeks and has yet to be fully resolved . During that time the metropolis has struggled to recover encrypted data on employees ’ computers and restore services on the municipal Web site . The criminals initially gave the city seven days to payAttack.Ransomabout $ 51,000 in the cryptocurrency bitcoin to get the decryption key for their data . That deadline came and went last week , yet several services remain offline , suggesting the city likely did not pay the ransomAttack.Ransom. City officials would not comment on the matter when contacted by Scientific American . The Department of Watershed Management , for example , still can not accept online or telephone payments for water and sewage bills , nor can the Department of Finance issue business licenses through its Web page . The Atlanta Municipal Court has been unable to process ticket payments either online or in person due to the outage and has had to reschedule some of its hearings . The city took down two of its online services voluntarily as a security precaution : the Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport wi-fi network and the ability to process service requests via the city ’ s 311 Web site portal , according to Anne Torres , Atlanta ’ s director of communications . Both are now back online , with airport wi-fi restored Tuesday morning . The ransomware used to attack Atlanta is called SamSam . Like most malicious software it typically enters computer networks through software whose security protections have not been updated . When attackers findVulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerabilityvulnerabilities in a network , they use the ransomware to encrypt files there and demand paymentAttack.Ransomto unlock them . Earlier this year attackers used a derivative of SamSam to lock up files at Hancock Regional Hospital in Greenfield , Ind . The health care institution paidAttack.Ransomnearly $ 50,000 to retrieve patient data . “ The SamSam ransomware used to attackAttack.RansomAtlanta is interesting because it gets into a network and spreads to multiple computers before locking them up , ” says Jake Williams , founder of computer security firm Rendition Infosec . “ The victim then has greater incentive to pay a larger ransomAttack.Ransomin order to regain control of that network of locked computers. ” The city ’ s technology department—Atlanta Information Management ( AIM ) —contacted local law enforcement , along with the FBI , Department of Homeland Security , Secret Service and independent forensic experts to help assess the damage and investigate the attack . The attackers set upAttack.Ransoman online payment portal for the city but soon took the site offline after a local television station published a screen shot of the ransom note , which included a link to the bitcoin wallet meant to collect the ransomAttack.Ransom. Several clues indicate Atlanta likely did not payAttack.Ransomthe attackers , Williams says . “ Ransomware gangs typically cut off communications once their victims get law enforcement involved , ” he says . “ Atlanta made it clear at a press conference soon after the malware was detected ” that they had done so . The length of time it has taken to slowly bring services back online also suggests the cyber criminals abandoned Atlanta without decrypting the city ’ s files , Williams says . “ If that ’ s the case , the city ’ s IT staff spent the past week rebuilding Atlanta ’ s online systems using backed-up data that had not been hitAttack.Ransomby the ransomware , ” he says , adding that any data not backed up is likely “ lost for good. ” “ If the city had paid the ransomAttack.Ransom, I would have expected them to bring up systems more quickly than they have done , ” says Justin Cappos , a professor of computer science and engineering at New York University ’ s Tandon School of Engineering . “ Assuming the city did not pay the ransomAttack.Ransom, their ability to recover their systems at all shows that they at least did a good job backing up their data . ”
Authorities on Wednesday charged two Iranian citizens for the ransomware cyber attackAttack.Ransomthat hobbled the city of Atlanta ’ s computer network in March , and the federal indictment outlines the pair ’ s massive nationwide scheme to breach computer networks of local governments , health care systems and other public entities . The defendants , Faramarz Shahi Savandi , 34 , and Mohammad Mehdi Shah Mansouri , 27 , are alleged to have developed the SamSam ransomware , malicious software that encrypts data until the infected organizations paid ransomAttack.Ransom. All told , the pair inflicted harm on more than 200 victims across the country and collected roughly $ 6 million in ransomAttack.Ransomover a three year period dating back to 2015 . Their scheme caused over $ 30 million in losses to various entities , according to federal authorities . The hack to city of Atlanta computers in March crippled city business for days . One internal report that surfaced in August estimated the damage to the city could cost up to $ 17 million . “ We ’ re glad that these people will be brought to justice , ” Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms told Channel 2 Action News . “ Hopefully this will stop another municipality from experiencing what we did. ” “ The defendants allegedly hijacked victims ’ computer systems and shut them down until the victims paid a ransomAttack.Ransom, ” said Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein , speaking at a press conference in Washington D.C. “ Many of the victims were public agencies with missions that involve saving lives and performing other critical functions for the American people. ” The two men are not in U.S. custody , and Iran has no extradition treaty with the U.S . But Justice Department officials expressed confidence that the Savandi and Mansouri ’ s travel patterns would subject them to being captured . Atlanta officials have repeatedly denied payingAttack.Ransomthe $ 51,000 in ransom demandedAttack.Ransomby the hackers and the 26-page federal indictment released Wednesday doesn ’ t directly address which cities and entities paid ransomAttack.Ransom. Brian Benczkowski , an assistant attorney general for the U.S. Justice Department , told reporters on Wednesday that the agency wouldn ’ t identify which victims paidAttack.Ransomthe attackers . A city of Atlanta spokesperson on Wednesday said again that no one acting on the city ’ s behalf , including its insurance carrier , paid any ransomAttack.Ransom. But the indictment has two references to Atlanta and it raises questions about whether or not the city paid ransomAttack.Ransom. The indictment describes the March 22 assaultAttack.Ransomon Atlanta ’ s network and the effort by the two men to demand ransomAttack.Ransom. In one paragraph , the indictment says they demanded ransomAttack.Ransomfrom Atlanta in Bitcoin payments in exchange for encryption keys to recover the city ’ s compromised data . The next paragraph says that on April 19 , Savandi “ received funds associated with ransom proceedsAttack.Ransom, which were converted into Iranian rial and deposited by ” an currency exchanger . The indictment does not say if those proceeds were associated with the Atlanta attack . But Ralph Echemendia , a computer hacking consultant who advises corporations on cyber security , said he read the indictment and thinks the payment was associated with the Atlanta attack because it would be one way that federal agents connected the breach to Savanda and Mansouri . The indictment describes how the two men demanded paymentsAttack.Ransomin bitcoins , a so-called crypto currency , and in Atlanta ’ s case , the demandAttack.Ransomequaled roughly $ 50,000 . “ The moment you try and turn it into dollars , euros or any kind of real currency it has to go through an exchange , ” Echemendia said . “ At that point the exchange would have to work with law enforcement … ultimately that is going to wind up in somebody ’ s back account. ” The Justice Department declined to answer a question from the AJC about whether April 19 exchange of bitcoins into Iranian rial described in the indictment was related to Atlanta ’ s attack . Tony UcedaVelez , CEO of Versprite , an Atlanta based security services said the language in the indictment does make it seem a ransom was paidAttack.Ransomon the city ’ s behalf . But he said it could have been made by someone in law enforcement hoping the funds would lead to the attackers . UcedaVelez also pointed to an attachment in the indictment that indicated someone associated with the city had followed the attackers ’ initial instructions . The indictment included a ransom note to Newark instructing it on how to download a Tor network browser and visit the attackers ’ website where victims could upload two files to be decrypted as a demonstration . Newark paid its ransomAttack.Ransomof roughly $ 30,000 . Another attachment shows the ransom website the attackers created for the city of Atlanta on the Tor network . To get there , someone would have had to download the Tor browser . And it appeared they had uploaded a couple of files for the demonstration . “ Files available to decrypt : 2 , ” read a statement on the site .
The Town of Midland ’ s computer systems were hacked over the long weekend . In the early morning hours of Sept 1 , the town became the victim of a cyberattackAttack.Ransomin which the town ’ s network was illegally accessed and infected with ransomware . The malware was able to encrypt a number of town systems rendering them unusable . The town has received a ransom demandAttack.Ransomto decrypt them . Town staff worked quickly to isolate the attacked and activate a cyber incident investigation . According to town staff , the necessary steps are being taken to restore access to the system and files and to try and return operations to normal as quickly as possible . “ Residents can rest assured that we are taking this matter extremely seriously , ” said Mayor Gord McKay . “ We are working closely with cybersecurity experts that specialize in these types of illegal attacks , and we have reported the incident to law enforcement and the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. ” Vital services , such as fire and water and wastewater management , were not impacted as these systems are purposely isolated for security reasons . Ongoing investigations have not found any evidence that information was removedAttack.Databreachfrom the system or inappropriately accessedAttack.Databreachand cybersecurity experts are working quickly to rule out that possibility . In late April , Wasaga Beach had their computer systems hacked and locked down for several weeks . The town eventually paidAttack.Ransomthe hackers three Bitcoins , worth approximately $ 34,000 . However , other costs including loss of productivity , new hardware and consultant fees were estimated at a combined $ 250,000 . Based on the recommendations outlined a recent service delivery review and lessons learned from the cyberattack in Wasaga Beach , Midland had secured an insurance policy for protection in the event of such illegal activities . A strategy to address cybersecurity threats had been developed , which the town was in the process of implementing . “ At the time of the attack the town was in the process of making several improvements to our IT security , ” said Midland chief administrative officer John Skorobohacz . “ Once systems are fully restored , we will continue with those plans and look for additional opportunities to enhance our security based on the guidance of cybersecurity experts . ”
MONTREAL—On Sept 10 , municipal employees in a region between Montreal and Quebec City arrived at work to discover a threatening message on their computers notifyingAttack.Ransomthem they were locked out of all their files . In order to regain access to its data , the regional municipality of Mekinac was told to depositAttack.Ransomeight units of the digital currency Bitcoin into a bank account — roughly equivalent to $ 65,000 . Mekinac ’ s IT department eventually negotiatedAttack.Ransomthe cyber extortionists down and paidAttack.Ransom$ 30,000 in Bitcoin , but not before the region ’ s servers were disabled for about two weeks . The attack highlights the inability of many small municipalities to adequately protect their data , but also the lack of guidance on cybersecurity provided to them by the Quebec government , according to Prof. Jose Fernandez , a malware expert at Montreal ’ s Polytechnique engineering school . “ Quebec is an embarrassment , ” Fernandez said in an interview , adding that he has tried without success to contact government representatives to alert them to the problem . “ There hasn ’ t been any traction on this issue in the past 15 years , ” he said . “ I try to speak to ( the government ) but there is nobody . Who are you going to call ? Nobody. ” Bernard Thompson , reeve for the Mekinac regional municipality , said the ransom demandAttack.Ransompresented a real dilemma for his small organization . Mekinac groups together 10 municipalities with a population of roughly 13,000 people . “ It was hard , clearly , on the moral side of things that we had to pay a bunch of bandits , ” Thompson said . Mekinac ’ s attackers used malicious software — known as malware or ransomware — to demand moneyAttack.Ransomin return for keys to unlock the data . Fernandez said it is ironic that Quebec is home to a thriving cybersecurity industry and is an emerging hub for artificial-intelligence research , yet the provincial government is “ decades ” behind other provinces in defending against cyberattacks . Still , Quebec is not the only province experiencing attacks . Several municipal governments and businesses in Ontario were recently hit by ransomware attacksAttack.Ransom, prompting the Ontario Provincial Police to issue an advisory in September . In response to the growing problem , Communications Security Establishment — the Defence Department ’ s electronic intelligence agency — launched the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security last month . It is responsible for monitoring “ new forms of ransomware ” and advising the federal and provincial governments . Spokesman Evan Koronewski said the centre has no provincial or territorial equivalent . Fernandez , however , notes that some provinces are taking significant steps . British Columbia and New Brunswick have established offices dedicated to protecting government data . Meanwhile in Quebec , he said , small towns are left unprotected . “ I ’ m hoping the new government does something about it , ” he said . Patrick Harvey , spokesman for the Public Security Department , disputed the claim the provincial government is unprepared for cyberattacks . He said the Treasury Department has a director of information responsible for ensuring government data is protected . The Public Security Department has a unit dedicated to responding to cyberattacks within the administration and provincial police . But municipalities are not part of the unit ’ s mandate . “ Municipalities are autonomous entities that are responsible for ensuring the security of their digital infrastructure , ” Harvey said . Mekinac ’ s servers were compromised after an employee opened and clicked on a link in a fraudulent email sentAttack.Phishingby the hackers . Once opened , the malware was downloaded onto the computer , giving the hackers access to the entire network . The hackers then encrypted all the data and held it hostage until they receivedAttack.Ransomtheir bitcoins . Once a system ’ s data is encrypted , it ’ s virtually impossible to crack the code without a key — and there is nothing police can do about it . Most professional criminals use commercial grade encryption and to locate a key to decrypt data would take “ astronomical effort in terms of computing , ” Fernandez said . “ You either payAttack.Ransomor you don ’ t get the data. ” The identity and location of Mekinac ’ s hackers were never discovered . Thompson said police seized some of his computers for analysis and told his office not to negotiate or payAttack.Ransomthe criminals . But Thompson said his region couldn ’ t heed that advice , because it would have meant months of data re-entry , costing significantly more than $ 30,000 . So they paidAttack.Ransom, got their data back and learned a valuable lesson . “ In the end , in terms of the security of our system , ( the attack ) was actually positive , ” Thompson said . A local cybersecurity company — for $ 10,000 a year — helped the regional municipality build firewalls and encrypt its own data . “ We are practically no longer vulnerable , ” Thompson said . “ Everything is encrypted now . Every email is analyzed before we even receive it. ” He warns that small towns across the province are just as susceptible to attack as his region was . “ Every day , our system catches malicious emails trying to penetrate — but they are stopped , ” he said . “ But the attacks keep coming . ”
MONTREAL—On Sept 10 , municipal employees in a region between Montreal and Quebec City arrived at work to discover a threatening message on their computers notifyingAttack.Ransomthem they were locked out of all their files . In order to regain access to its data , the regional municipality of Mekinac was told to depositAttack.Ransomeight units of the digital currency Bitcoin into a bank account — roughly equivalent to $ 65,000 . Mekinac ’ s IT department eventually negotiatedAttack.Ransomthe cyber extortionists down and paidAttack.Ransom$ 30,000 in Bitcoin , but not before the region ’ s servers were disabled for about two weeks . The attack highlights the inability of many small municipalities to adequately protect their data , but also the lack of guidance on cybersecurity provided to them by the Quebec government , according to Prof. Jose Fernandez , a malware expert at Montreal ’ s Polytechnique engineering school . “ Quebec is an embarrassment , ” Fernandez said in an interview , adding that he has tried without success to contact government representatives to alert them to the problem . “ There hasn ’ t been any traction on this issue in the past 15 years , ” he said . “ I try to speak to ( the government ) but there is nobody . Who are you going to call ? Nobody. ” Bernard Thompson , reeve for the Mekinac regional municipality , said the ransom demandAttack.Ransompresented a real dilemma for his small organization . Mekinac groups together 10 municipalities with a population of roughly 13,000 people . “ It was hard , clearly , on the moral side of things that we had to pay a bunch of bandits , ” Thompson said . Mekinac ’ s attackers used malicious software — known as malware or ransomware — to demand moneyAttack.Ransomin return for keys to unlock the data . Fernandez said it is ironic that Quebec is home to a thriving cybersecurity industry and is an emerging hub for artificial-intelligence research , yet the provincial government is “ decades ” behind other provinces in defending against cyberattacks . Still , Quebec is not the only province experiencing attacks . Several municipal governments and businesses in Ontario were recently hit by ransomware attacksAttack.Ransom, prompting the Ontario Provincial Police to issue an advisory in September . In response to the growing problem , Communications Security Establishment — the Defence Department ’ s electronic intelligence agency — launched the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security last month . It is responsible for monitoring “ new forms of ransomware ” and advising the federal and provincial governments . Spokesman Evan Koronewski said the centre has no provincial or territorial equivalent . Fernandez , however , notes that some provinces are taking significant steps . British Columbia and New Brunswick have established offices dedicated to protecting government data . Meanwhile in Quebec , he said , small towns are left unprotected . “ I ’ m hoping the new government does something about it , ” he said . Patrick Harvey , spokesman for the Public Security Department , disputed the claim the provincial government is unprepared for cyberattacks . He said the Treasury Department has a director of information responsible for ensuring government data is protected . The Public Security Department has a unit dedicated to responding to cyberattacks within the administration and provincial police . But municipalities are not part of the unit ’ s mandate . “ Municipalities are autonomous entities that are responsible for ensuring the security of their digital infrastructure , ” Harvey said . Mekinac ’ s servers were compromised after an employee opened and clicked on a link in a fraudulent email sentAttack.Phishingby the hackers . Once opened , the malware was downloaded onto the computer , giving the hackers access to the entire network . The hackers then encrypted all the data and held it hostage until they receivedAttack.Ransomtheir bitcoins . Once a system ’ s data is encrypted , it ’ s virtually impossible to crack the code without a key — and there is nothing police can do about it . Most professional criminals use commercial grade encryption and to locate a key to decrypt data would take “ astronomical effort in terms of computing , ” Fernandez said . “ You either payAttack.Ransomor you don ’ t get the data. ” The identity and location of Mekinac ’ s hackers were never discovered . Thompson said police seized some of his computers for analysis and told his office not to negotiate or payAttack.Ransomthe criminals . But Thompson said his region couldn ’ t heed that advice , because it would have meant months of data re-entry , costing significantly more than $ 30,000 . So they paidAttack.Ransom, got their data back and learned a valuable lesson . “ In the end , in terms of the security of our system , ( the attack ) was actually positive , ” Thompson said . A local cybersecurity company — for $ 10,000 a year — helped the regional municipality build firewalls and encrypt its own data . “ We are practically no longer vulnerable , ” Thompson said . “ Everything is encrypted now . Every email is analyzed before we even receive it. ” He warns that small towns across the province are just as susceptible to attack as his region was . “ Every day , our system catches malicious emails trying to penetrate — but they are stopped , ” he said . “ But the attacks keep coming . ”
New variants of an Android ransomware family have surged over the past six months to some 600 unique versions . That 's a dramatic jump from the 100 variants created between October to the start of December , says Michael Covington , vice president of product strategy for Wandera , which published new data on the ransomware today . The new strains of the mobile ransomware use a range of disguises to avoid detection . The SLocker variations are repackaged as altered icon , for example , or offer unique resources and executable files . SLocker encrypts images , documents , and videos , as well as blocks access to the device before demanding paymentAttack.Ransomto unlock the phone and its contents . Chief security officers and their teams have reason to worry about the rapid rise in the number of SLocker strains , say security experts . The malware has morphed beyond just locking users ' screens on their Android devices and demanding paymentAttack.Ransom, to taking over administrative rights and controlling the device , including its microphone , speakers , and the camera . Bogdan Botezatu , senior e-threat analyst with Bitdefender , says an Android smartphone infected with SLocker could potentially broadcast highly sensitive information presented during a closed-door boardroom meeting without the user 's knowledge , for example . Wandera 's Covington points to potential risks to sales and consulting staff , for example . `` In a lot of situations where the employees work out in the field like in sales or consulting , it can have a massive impact on their business if they are locked out of their phone and data , '' he explains . Victim organizations paidAttack.Ransoman estimated $ 10 million in ransomAttack.Ransomto unlock confidential data stored on Android phones that fell victim to SLocker , according to Wandera 's report . Android ransomware first emerged in 2014 , after creators of the Reveton/IcePol ransomware for PCs turned their attention to Android devices and cooked up the Android.Trojan . Koler.A and then later Android.Trojan.SLocker , according to Bitdefender 's Botezatu . For the first two years , SLocker was among the top 20 Android malware families and then shot up to the top 10 in 2016 , notes Botezatu . `` Its rise to the top 10 was mostly because of the frustration factor . It 's a psychological thing when people ca n't get information from their smartphone , '' he says . `` People were willing to pay the ransomAttack.Ransom. The mobile device is more personal than the personal computer . '' But now SLocker ranks in the No . 14 to No . 18 spot among the top 20 Android malware families , as cyberthieves create new types of Android malware and enlarge the pool of contenders and dilute SLocker 's influence , Botezatu says .
Ransomware , a special version of trojan that encrypts files , has become a new and tremendously growing type of cybercrime . The 2016 Ransomware Report released by 360 Security Center lately presents that : – 4.9 million computers were attacked in China – 56,000 ransomware infections worldwide only in March 2016 – $ 1 billion dollar source of income for cyber criminals estimated by FBI – Almost half of organizations have been hit with ransomware In January 2016 , three Indian banks ’ and a pharmaceutical company ’ s computer systems were infectedAttack.Ransomby ransomware . The attacker asked forAttack.Ransom1 bitcoin ( about $ 905 ) for each infected computer , and then used unprotected desktop interface to infect other connected computers from remote . These corps lost several million dollars due to the huge number of infected computers . February 5th 2016 , Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center paidAttack.Ransoma $ 17,000 ransomAttack.Ransomin bitcoin to a hacker who seized control of the hospital ’ s computer systems and would give back access only when the money was paidAttack.Ransom. Two hospitals in Ottawa and in Ontario were attacked by ransomware later on . In February 2016 , several schools ’ computer systems were attacked by ransomware . The hacker took control of the intranet and servers , and asked forAttack.Ransom20 bitcoin . These school ended up payingAttack.Ransomthe anonymous hacker $ 8,500 to get their IT systems back . In the mid-February , a new ransomware “ Locky ” started to spread out via email . 7 out of 10 malicious email attachments delivered Locky in Q2 2016 . Once users activated the file attached in the email , their files were encrypted and had to payAttack.Ransomthe distributor a certain ransomAttack.Ransomto decrypt these files . May 2016 , a series of ransomware attacks on the House of Representatives have led US congress to ban using Yahoo Mail and Google hosted-apps , and warned their members about being caution of Internet security . In October , 2016 , 277 ransomware attacksAttack.Ransomwere reported to Government Computer Emergency Response Team in Hong Kong , China . Most of the malware were hidden in email attachments and disguised asAttack.Phishingbills or receipts to trickAttack.Phishingusers to click . The victims included the Marine Department of Hong Kong and Deloitte , one of the biggest accounting firms in the world . In November 2016 , other than emails , Locky began to transmit through social networks such as Facebook , LinkedIn with images contained malicious application . The file could be automatically downloaded while users were browsing , and installed once users clicked to check . November 2016 , San Francisco public transportation system Muni was hacked and requested forAttack.Ransoma $ 73,000 ransomAttack.Ransomin bitcoin to get back encrypted data . SFMTA ( The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority ) refused to payAttack.Ransomthe ransomAttack.Ransomand shut down the fair system . We can see that ransomeware is terrifying and collecting money illegally around the world . However , it ’ s almost impossible to decrypt the infected files by yourself , even for people with high information technology skills .
Cyber security researchers on Monday pointed to code in a "ransomware" attackAttack.Ransomthat could indicate a link to North Korea . Symantec and Kaspersky Lab each cited code that was previously used by a hacker collective known as the Lazarus Group , which was behind the high-profile 2014 hack of Sony that was also blamed on North Korea . But the security firms cautioned that it is too early to make any definitive conclusions , in part because the code could have been merely copied by someone else for use in the current event . The effects of the ransomware attackAttack.Ransomappeared to ease Monday , although thousands more computers , mostly in Asia , were hitAttack.Ransomas people signed in at work for the first time since the infections spread to 150 countries late last week . Health officials in Britain , where surgeries and doctors ' appointments in its national health care system had been severely impacted Friday , were still having problems Monday . But health minister Jeremy Hunt said it was `` encouraging '' that a second wave of attacks had not materialized . He said `` the level of criminal activity is at the lower end of the range that we had anticipated . '' In the United States , Tom Bossert , a homeland security adviser to President Donald Trump , told the ABC television network the global cybersecurity attack is something that `` for right now , we 've got under control . '' He told reporters at the White House that `` less than $ 70,000 '' has been paid as ransomAttack.Ransomto those carrying out the attacks . He urged all computer users to make sure they installVulnerability-related.PatchVulnerabilitysoftware patches to protect themselves against further cyberattacks . In the television interview , Bossert described the malware that paralyzed 200,000 computers running factories , banks , government agencies , hospitals and transportation systems across the globe as an `` extremely serious threat . '' Cybersecurity experts say the hackers behind the `` WannaCry '' ransomware , who demandedAttack.Ransom$ 300 paymentsAttack.Ransomto decrypt files locked by the malware , used a vulnerability that came from U.S. government documents leaked online . The attacks exploitedVulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerabilityknown vulnerabilities in older Microsoft computer operating systems . During the weekend , Microsoft president Brad Smith said the clandestine U.S. National Security Agency had developed the code used in the attack . Bossert said `` criminals , '' not the U.S. government , are responsible for the attacks . Like Bossert , experts believe Microsoft 's security patch releasedVulnerability-related.PatchVulnerabilityin March should protect networks if companies and individual users install it . Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country had nothing to do with the attack and cited the Microsoft statement blaming the NSA for causing the worldwide cyberattack . `` A genie let out of a bottle of this kind , especially created by secret services , can then cause damage to its authors and creators , '' Putin said while attending an international summit in Beijing . He said that while there was `` no significant damage '' to Russian institutions from the cyberattack , the incident was `` worrisome . '' `` There is nothing good in this and calls for concern , '' he said . Even though there appeared to be a diminished number of attacks Monday , computer outages still affected segments of life across the globe , especially in Asia , where Friday 's attacks occurred after business hours . China China said 29,000 institutions had been affected , along with hundreds of thousands of devices . Japan 's computer emergency response team said 2,000 computers at 600 locations were affected there . Universities and other educational institutions appeared to be the hardest hit in China . China 's Xinhua News Agency said railway stations , mail delivery , gas stations , hospitals , office buildings , shopping malls and government services also were affected . Elsewhere , Britain said seven of the 47 trusts that run its national health care system were still affected , with some surgeries and outpatient appointments canceled as a result . In France , auto manufacturer Renault said one of its plants that employs 3,500 workers stayed shut Monday as technicians dealt with the aftermath of the Friday attacks . Security patches Computer security experts have assured individual computer users who have kept their operating systems updated that they are relatively safe , but urged companies and governments to make sure they applyVulnerability-related.PatchVulnerabilitysecurity patches or upgradeVulnerability-related.PatchVulnerabilityto newer systems . They advised those whose networks have been effectively shut down by the ransomware attackAttack.Ransomnot to make the payment demandedAttack.Ransom, the equivalent of $ 300 , paidAttack.Ransomin the digital currency bitcoin . However , the authors of the "WannaCry" ransomware attackAttack.Ransomtold their victims the amount they must payAttack.Ransomwill double if they do not comply within three days of the original infection , by Monday in most cases . The hackers warned that they will delete all files on infected systems if no paymentAttack.Ransomis received within seven days .
The IT security researchers at Trend Micro recently discovered malware that has the potential to infect Linux-based servers . The malware , called Erebus , has been responsible for hijacking 153 Linux-based networks of a South Korean web-hosting company called NAYANA . Erebus is a ransomware capable of infecting Linux operating systems . As such , around 3,400 of NAYANA ’ s clients were affected due to the attack with databases , websites and other files being encrypted . The incident took place on 10th June . As of now , NAYANA has not received the keys to decrypt their files despite having paidAttack.Ransomthree parts of the ransomAttack.Ransom. The fourth one , which is allegedly the last installment , is yet to be paid . However , according to NAYANA , the attackers claimed to provide the key after three paymentsAttack.Ransom. According to Trend Micro ’ s report , Erebus was originally found back in September 2016 . At the time , the malware was not that harmful and was being distributed through malware-containing advertisements . Once the user clicked on those ads , the ransomware would activate in the usual way . The initial version of the Erebus only affected 423 file types and did so using the RSA-2048 encryption algorithm , thereby encrypting the files with the .encrypt extension . Furthermore , it was this variant that was using a number of websites in South Korea as a command- & -control ( C & C ) center . Later , in February 2017 , the malware had seemingly evolved as now it had the ability to bypass User Account Control ( UAC ) . For those who may be unfamiliar with UAC , it is primarily a Windows privacy protection system that restricts anyone who is not authorized , to alter the user ’ s computer . However , this later version of the Erebus was able to do so and inject ransomware ever so conveniently . The campaign in which this version was involved demanded a ransomAttack.Ransomof 0.085 bitcoins – equivalent to USD 216 at present – and threatened to delete the files in 96 hours if the ransomAttack.Ransomwas not paidAttack.Ransom. Now , however , Erebus has reached new heights by having the ability to bypass not only UAC but also affect entire networks that run on Linux . Given that most organizations today use Linux for their networks , it is no surprise to see that the effects of the malware are far-reaching . According to Trend Micro , the most recent version of Erebus uses RSA algorithm to alter the AES keys in Windows and change the encryption key as such . Also , the attack is accompanied by a Bluetooth service so as to ensure that the ransomware does not break , even after the computer is rebooted . This version can affect a total of 433 file types including databases , archives , office documents , email files , web-based files and multimedia files . The ransom demandedAttack.Ransomin this campaign amounts to 5 bitcoins , which is USD 12,344 currently . Although ransomware affecting Linux based networks are rare , they are , however , not new . Erebus is not the first ransomware to have affected networks running on Linux . In fact , Trend Micro claims that such ransomware was discovered as far back as in 2014 . Some of the ransomware include Linux.Encoder , Encrypter RaaS , KillDisk , KimcilWare and much more . All of these were allegedly developed from an open-source code project that was available as part of an educational campaign . The ransomware for Linux , despite being somewhat inferior to those for Windows , are still potent enough to cause damage on a massive scale . This is because , a number of organizations and data centers use Linux , and hijacking such high-end systems can only mean catastrophe . To avoid any accidents happening , IT officials and organizations running Linux-based networks need to take some serious precautions . The most obvious one is to simply keep the server updated with the latest firmware and anti-virus software . Furthermore , it is always a good idea to keep a back-up of your data files in two to three separate locations . It is also repeatedly advised to avoid installing unknown third-party programs as these can act as potential gateways for such ransomware . Lastly , IT administrators should keep monitoring the traffic that passes through the network and looks for anomalies by identifying any inconsistencies in event logs .
The IT security researchers at Trend Micro recently discovered malware that has the potential to infect Linux-based servers . The malware , called Erebus , has been responsible for hijacking 153 Linux-based networks of a South Korean web-hosting company called NAYANA . Erebus is a ransomware capable of infecting Linux operating systems . As such , around 3,400 of NAYANA ’ s clients were affected due to the attack with databases , websites and other files being encrypted . The incident took place on 10th June . As of now , NAYANA has not received the keys to decrypt their files despite having paidAttack.Ransomthree parts of the ransomAttack.Ransom. The fourth one , which is allegedly the last installment , is yet to be paid . However , according to NAYANA , the attackers claimed to provide the key after three paymentsAttack.Ransom. According to Trend Micro ’ s report , Erebus was originally found back in September 2016 . At the time , the malware was not that harmful and was being distributed through malware-containing advertisements . Once the user clicked on those ads , the ransomware would activate in the usual way . The initial version of the Erebus only affected 423 file types and did so using the RSA-2048 encryption algorithm , thereby encrypting the files with the .encrypt extension . Furthermore , it was this variant that was using a number of websites in South Korea as a command- & -control ( C & C ) center . Later , in February 2017 , the malware had seemingly evolved as now it had the ability to bypass User Account Control ( UAC ) . For those who may be unfamiliar with UAC , it is primarily a Windows privacy protection system that restricts anyone who is not authorized , to alter the user ’ s computer . However , this later version of the Erebus was able to do so and inject ransomware ever so conveniently . The campaign in which this version was involved demanded a ransomAttack.Ransomof 0.085 bitcoins – equivalent to USD 216 at present – and threatened to delete the files in 96 hours if the ransomAttack.Ransomwas not paidAttack.Ransom. Now , however , Erebus has reached new heights by having the ability to bypass not only UAC but also affect entire networks that run on Linux . Given that most organizations today use Linux for their networks , it is no surprise to see that the effects of the malware are far-reaching . According to Trend Micro , the most recent version of Erebus uses RSA algorithm to alter the AES keys in Windows and change the encryption key as such . Also , the attack is accompanied by a Bluetooth service so as to ensure that the ransomware does not break , even after the computer is rebooted . This version can affect a total of 433 file types including databases , archives , office documents , email files , web-based files and multimedia files . The ransom demandedAttack.Ransomin this campaign amounts to 5 bitcoins , which is USD 12,344 currently . Although ransomware affecting Linux based networks are rare , they are , however , not new . Erebus is not the first ransomware to have affected networks running on Linux . In fact , Trend Micro claims that such ransomware was discovered as far back as in 2014 . Some of the ransomware include Linux.Encoder , Encrypter RaaS , KillDisk , KimcilWare and much more . All of these were allegedly developed from an open-source code project that was available as part of an educational campaign . The ransomware for Linux , despite being somewhat inferior to those for Windows , are still potent enough to cause damage on a massive scale . This is because , a number of organizations and data centers use Linux , and hijacking such high-end systems can only mean catastrophe . To avoid any accidents happening , IT officials and organizations running Linux-based networks need to take some serious precautions . The most obvious one is to simply keep the server updated with the latest firmware and anti-virus software . Furthermore , it is always a good idea to keep a back-up of your data files in two to three separate locations . It is also repeatedly advised to avoid installing unknown third-party programs as these can act as potential gateways for such ransomware . Lastly , IT administrators should keep monitoring the traffic that passes through the network and looks for anomalies by identifying any inconsistencies in event logs .
The average company had four ransomware attacksAttack.Ransomlast year , paidAttack.Ransoman average ransomAttack.Ransomof $ 2,500 per incident , and spent 42 hours dealing with the attackAttack.Ransom. `` We 're nowhere near the end of the ransomware threat , '' said Norman Guadagno , chief evangelist at Carbonite , which provides continuous automated cloud backup services . Of those who did not pay up , 42 percent said that having a full and accurate backup was the reason . And only 13 percent said their preparedness to prevent ransomware was `` high . '' `` People say , ' I know I should back up , have anti-virus , use strong passwords ' -- but they do n't do it , '' said Guadagno . Only 46 percent of respondents said that prevention of ransomware attacks was a high priority for their company . One reason could be that they do n't think the hackers will bother with them . According to the survey , 55 percent of companies said they thought it was either likely or certain that the ransomware also exfiltratedAttack.Databreachdata from the infected device . Businesses should not only have anti-virus in place to keep ransomware from getting in , but also train their employees to spot potential attacks . According to the survey , only 29 percent of respondents said they were confident that their employees could detect risky links or sites . It just goes to show that you ca n't even trust cybercriminals these days .