part 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 .
One week ago a global cyberattackAttack.Ransomdubbed “ unprecedented ” by Europol began infecting an estimated 200,000 of the world ’ s computers , starting a seven-day countdown to the destruction of data if victims did not pay a ransomAttack.Ransom. On Friday , those countdowns begin reaching zero . But as of lunchtime the attackers had claimed only about $ 92,000 ( €82,183 ) in paymentsAttack.Ransomfrom their widespread ransom demandsAttack.Ransom, according to Elliptic Enterprises Ltd , a UK-based company that tracks illicit use of bitcoin . The company calculates the total based on payments tracked to bitcoin addresses specified in the ransom demandsAttack.Ransom. The ransomware , called WannaCry , began infecting users on May 12th and gave them 72 hours to payAttack.Ransom$ 300 in bitcoin or payAttack.Ransomtwice as much . Refusal to payAttack.Ransomafter seven days was promised to result in the permanent loss of data via irrevocable encryption . With affected institutions including the Health Service Executive ( which said it prevented the ransomware from activating ) , the National Health Service in the UK , FedEx and PetroChina , few initially paid upAttack.Ransom, leading to speculation that organisations were taking their chances on fixing their corrupt machines before the ransomAttack.Ransomforced a mass deletion of critical data . A week later , experts agree the financial gains of the hackers remain astonishingly low . “ With over 200,000 machines affected , the figure is lower than expected , ” said Jamie Akhtar , co-founder of the London-based security software firm CyberSmart . “ If even 1 per cent paid the ransomAttack.Ransomthat would be $ 600k. ” Mr Akhtar said experts may never know how much larger this figure would have been if a so-called kill switch had not been accidentally triggered by a cyber security researcher , who registered an internet domain that acted as a disabling tool for the worm ’ s propagation . While the world ’ s law enforcement is pointing its resources at trying to identify the culprits , Tom Robinson , chief operating officer and co-founder of Elliptic Enterprises , says it ’ s unlikely the money taken from victims will be taken from the digital bitcoin wallets they ’ re being anonymously held in . “ Given the amount of scrutiny this has come under , I would be surprised if they moved it anytime soon , ” he said . “ I just don ’ t think the risk is worth the $ 90,000 they ’ ve raised so far. ” Mr Akhtar agrees but doesn ’ t think the criminals have given up hope while machines infected later still have time ticking on their ransomAttack.Ransomcountdown . “ It seems like they are still actively trying to bring funds in , ” he said , noting a Twitter post from Symantec on Thursday , which seemed to show fresh messaging from the attackers promising to hold their end of the decryption bargain if victims paid upAttack.Ransom. Mr Akhtar believes the best thing the perpetrators can do to hide from authorities is “ destroy any evidence and abandon the bitcoin wallets ” . Of course , the hack may have nothing to do with money at all . Any movement of funds from a bitcoin wallet would act as a valuable clue for law enforcement as to who is behind the attack . Preliminary finger-pointing has already targeted groups with suspected links to the North Korean regime , but clues are still few are far between . – ( Bloomberg )
Robert Gren was working from home on Friday when , all of a sudden , his laptop stopped working . What he initially thought was just a kink in his computer ’ s software was in fact part of a global ransomware attackAttack.Ransomthat has affected more than 200,000 computers and caused untold havoc from China to Britain . Now , Mr. Gren and the thousands of other victims worldwide face an agonizing choice : either hand over the ransomAttack.Ransom— a figure that has climbed to $ 600 for each affected machine — by a deadline this Friday , or potentially lose their digital information , including personal photos , hospital patient records and other priceless data , forever . “ I ’ m pretty devastated , ” said Mr. Gren , 32 , a manager of an online entertainment business in Krakow , Poland , who has spent almost all of his waking hours since Friday looking for ways to reclaim his digital data . “ I ’ ve lost private files that I have no other way of recovering . For me , the damage has been huge. ” That decision has become even more difficult as cybersecurity experts and law enforcement officials have repeatedly warned people against paying the ransomAttack.Ransomahead of this week ’ s deadline . Aside from dissuading victims from handing over moneyAttack.Ransomthat may help fund further such attacks , they caution that it is not guaranteed the attackers will return control of people ’ s computers even if they payAttack.Ransomthe assailants in bitcoin , a digital currency favored in such ransomware attacksAttack.Ransomthat can be difficult to trace . Officials also note that the attackers , who have yet to been named , have provided only three bitcoin addresses — similar to a traditional bank routing number — for all global victims to deposit the ransomAttack.Ransom, so it may prove difficult to know who has paid the digital feesAttack.Ransom. This haphazard planning has led many victims to hold off payingAttack.Ransom, at least until they can guarantee they will get their data back . So far , roughly $ 80,000 has been depositedAttack.Ransominto the bitcoin addresses linked to the attackAttack.Ransom, according to Elliptic , a company that tracks online financial transactions involving virtual currencies . F-Secure , a Finnish cybersecurity firm , has confirmed that some of the 200 individuals that it had identified , who had paid the ransomAttack.Ransom, had successfully had their files decrypted . Yet that represented a small fraction of those affected , and the company said it still remained unlikely that people would regain control of their computers if they paid the online feeAttack.Ransom. The tally of ransom paymentsAttack.Ransommay rise ahead of Friday ’ s deadline , but cybersecurity experts say the current numbers — both total ransom money paidAttack.Ransomand machines decrypted — are far short of early estimates forecasting that the digital attack may eventually cost victims hundreds of millions of dollars in combined ransom feesAttack.Ransom. “ I predict this may be an epic failure , ” said Kim Peretti , a former senior litigator in the Department of Justice ’ s computer crime and intellectual property division who now is co-chairwoman of the cybersecurity preparedness and response team at Alston & Bird , an international law firm . “ Because of the publicity of this attack and the public ’ s awareness of people potentially not getting their files back , the figures aren ’ t as high as people had first thought. ” For victims of such attacks , the potential loss of personal or business files can be traumatic . In typical ransomware cases , including the most recent hack , assailants sendAttack.Phishingan encrypted email to potential targets . The message includes a malware attachment that takes over their machines if opened . The attackers then demand paymentAttack.Ransombefore returning control of the computers , often through money paid into bitcoin or other largely untraceable online currencies .
Ransomware authors are profiting from the rise of the cryptocurrency -- but it 's also bringing some unexpected problems for them and other dark web operators . The value of bitcoin has soared in recent days : at the one point the cryptocurrency was worth almost $ 19,000 before it dropped back to around $ 16,500 , where it has roughly remained since . It 's almost impossible to predict what will happen next . The price of bitcoin could rise again or it could crash -- but , for now at least , a single unit of the cryptocurrency is worth a significant amount of money . Bitcoin has become the popular payment method for ransomware over the last two years , as the digital currency provides cybercriminals with a means of collecting ransomsAttack.Ransom, while also making it difficult to get the ransom-collectors ' identities , thanks to the level of anonymity it offers . WannaCryAttack.Ransom, the biggest ransomware event of the year , for example , hitAttack.Ransomhundreds of thousands of PCs around the globe , encrypting files and demanding a paymentAttack.Ransomof $ 300 in bitcoin for the safe return of what was stored on the machine . In this instance , the ransomware code itself was poorly written and the vast majority of victims were able to restore their systems without giving into the demandsAttack.Ransomof the cyber-attackers . However , by the time those behind WannaCryAttack.Ransomhad withdrawn funds from the associated Bitcoin wallets -- a full three months after the attack -- it meant the 338 paymentsAttack.Ransomvictims had made were worth around $ 140,000 , which was an increase in value of just under $ 50,000 compared to when the majority of payments were madeAttack.Ransom. If those behind WannaCryAttack.Ransomhave held onto their illicit investment , they could now be sitting on over $ 1m of bitcoin . But the sudden spike in bitcoin could actually be problematic for some cybercriminals . Before the surge in value , 1 or 0.5 bitcoin was a common ransom demandAttack.Ransom, with the idea that if the fee was low enough -- back then the ransom value worked out at a few hundred dollars -- this would encourage the victim to pay upAttack.Ransom. Even as the value of bitcoin steadily rose during the summer , some attackers were still using the standard amounts of cryptocurrency as their ransom demandAttack.Ransom. For example , Magniber ransomware demanded a paymentAttack.Ransomof 0.2 bitcoin ( $ 1,138 in mid-October ) , rising to 0.4 bitcoin ( $ 2,275 in mid-October ) if the payment wasn't receivedAttack.Ransomwithin five days . Two months later , 0.2 bitcoin is currently worth $ 3,312 while 0.4 bitcoin is up to $ 6,625 . Many forms of ransomware already ask for the paymentAttack.Ransomof a specified amount of dollars to be made in bitcoin . While it pins hopes on victims being able to buy a specific amount of bitcoin and successfully transfer the payment -- which some criminal gangs get around by manning help desks providing advice on buying cryptocurrency -- it 's more likely to result in the victim paying upAttack.Ransom, especially if the figure is just a few hundred dollars . `` I imagine the volatility of bitcoin pricing has been an unexpected problem for cybercriminals . The average ransom demandAttack.Ransomhas remained somewhere between $ 300 to $ 1000 , and normally the ransom note will specify a USD amount , '' Andy Norton , director of threat intelligence at Lastline , told ZDNet . It is n't just ransomware distributors who might be faced with the problem of valuing items in pure bitcoin : a Dark Web vendor -- whether they are selling malware , weapons , drugs , or any other illegal item -- might find that setting their price in pure bitcoin will quickly result in them pricing themselves out of the market . With bitcoin prices continuing to rise , sophisticated cybercriminal operators can likely react to it , altering prices on a day-to-day basis to ensure that they 're able to sustain their business . Criminals are trying out alternative pricing models for ransomware already . Some criminals already operate around the idea that they chargeAttack.Ransomvictims just enough so that they do n't see the ransomAttack.Ransomas too much to payAttack.Ransom-- and that often depends on the country the victims are in . The Fatboy ransomware payment scheme chargesAttack.Ransomvictims in poorer countries less than those in richer ones . Meanwhile , those behind Scarab ransomware have started askingAttack.Ransomvictims to suggest a payment amountAttack.Ransomfor receiving the encryption key for their files .
The murky ecosystem of ransomware paymentsAttack.Ransomcomes into focus in new research led by Damon McCoy , an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering . Ransomware attacksAttack.Ransom, which encrypt and hold a computer user 's files hostage in exchange for paymentAttack.Ransom, extortAttack.Ransommillions of dollars from individuals each month , and comprise one of the fastest-growing forms of cyber attack . In a paper slated for presentation at the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy in May , McCoy and a team including researchers from the University of California , San Diego ; Princeton University ; Google ; and the blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis provide the first detailed account of the ransomware payment ecosystem , from initial attack to cash-out . Key findings include the discovery that South Koreans are disproportionately impactedAttack.Ransomby ransomware campaigns , with analysis revealing that $ 2.5 million of the $ 16 million in ransomware paymentsAttack.Ransomtracked by the researchers was paidAttack.Ransomin South Korea . The paper 's authors call for additional research to determine the reason that so many South Koreans are victimized and how they can be protected . The team also found that most ransomware operators used a Russian bitcoin exchange , BTC-E , to convert bitcoin to fiat currencies . ( BTC-E has since been seized by the FBI . ) The researchers estimate that at least 20,000 individuals made ransomware paymentsAttack.Ransomover the past two years , at a confirmed cost of $ 16 million , although the actual payment total is likely far higher . McCoy and his collaborators took advantage of the public nature of the bitcoin blockchain technology to trace ransom paymentsAttack.Ransomover a two-year period¬ . Bitcoins are the most common currency of ransomware paymentsAttack.Ransom, and because most victims do not own them , the initial bitcoin purchase provides a starting point for tracking payments . Each ransomware victim is often given a unique payment address that directs to a bitcoin wallet where the ransomAttack.Ransomis collected . The research team tapped public reports of ransomware attacksAttack.Ransomto identify these addresses and correlate them with blockchain transactions . To boost the number of transactions available for analysis , the team also executed real ransomware binaries in a controlled experimental environment , essentially becoming victims themselves and making micropayments to real ransom wallets in order to follow the bitcoin trail . `` Ransomware operators ultimately direct bitcoin to a central account that they cash out periodically , and by injecting a little bit of our own money into the larger flow we could identify those central accounts , see the other payments flowing in , and begin to understand the number of victims and the amount of money being collected , '' McCoy said . The research team acknowledged that ethical issues prevent exploration of certain aspects of the ransomware ecosystem , including determining the percentage of victims who actually payAttack.Ransomto recover their files . McCoy explained that despite having the ability to check for activity connected to a specific payment address , doing so would effectively `` start the clock '' and potentially cause victims to either pay a double ransomAttack.Ransomor lose the opportunity to recover their files altogether . Criminal use of cryptocurrencies is one of McCoy 's research focuses . He and fellow researchers previously tracked human traffickers through their use of Bitcoin advertising .
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 . ''
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 . ”
Cyberthieves are increasingly targeting the malicious software , which locks all files on a targeted computer or network until the owner pays upAttack.Ransom, at smaller and arguably more vulnerable organizations . The Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County in California was a recent target . Seconds after a co-worker clicked on a malicious email attachment , “ the compressed file she had opened connected her computer with a server in the Ukraine , ” says Will Bailey , director of IT for the organization . “ It downloaded the ransomware code and began to encrypt files on her device ” . While cyberthieves ostensibly have more to gain from large organizations , experts say they see smaller organizations as lower-hanging fruit . Because a successful breach of an institution with fewer information security resources is easier to achieve and more likely to have a meaningful impact , it is also more likely to result in a payment . “ Small businesses are frequently a more appealing target for ransomware because they sit at the juncture of money and vulnerability , ” says Ryan Olson , director of the Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 cybersecurity threat intelligence team . “ They frequently have more money than individuals , but being small businesses , they lack the more sophisticated defenses that larger business have ” . “ These attackers have also learned that the most profitable method is to hitAttack.Ransommany small businesses with low ransom demandsAttack.Ransom—usually $ 300 to $ 2,000 . Even small businesses can generally afford to pay those amounts ” . — Eric Hodge , director of consulting , IDT911 Consulting The stats are staggering . The frequency of ransomware attacksAttack.Ransomagainst organizations with fewer than 200 employees is poised to “ triple or quadruple ” from that of 2015 , according to Eric Hodge , director of consulting for IDT911 Consulting . And 60 percent of small businesses that suffer a ransomware attackAttack.Ransomare already going out of business within six months , according to the U.S. National Cyber Security Alliance . For many small businesses , if the ransomAttack.Ransomis low enough , and data backups aren ’ t available , experts say the most cost-effective response is often to pay the ransomAttack.Ransom. “ At this point , it seems to be the small companies , and individuals providing service as a company , who are in the crosshairs , ” Hodge says . “ These attackers have also learned that the most profitable method is to hitAttack.Ransommany small businesses with low ransom demandsAttack.Ransom—usually $ 300 to $ 2,000 . Even small businesses can generally afford to pay those amounts ” . Ransomware reportedly has cost U.S. small to midsize businesses alone more than $ 75 billion in damages and payments , according to a September 2016 survey by data protection vendor Datto . Indeed , 31 percent of the Datto survey ’ s respondents said they had experienced multiple ransomware attacksAttack.Ransomwithin a single day , and a whopping 63 percent said these attacks led to downtime in their business operations , which could cost them as much as $ 8,500 per hour . And according to Symantec ’ s 2016 Internet Security Threat Report , 43 percent of last year ’ s phishing emails , the vast majority of which were laced with ransomware , targeted small businesses—up from 18 percent in 2011 . New research indicates that consumers similarly are becoming more attractive ransomware targets . According to a recent study from IBM X-Force , which surveyed 600 business professionals and 1,000 consumers , 54 percent of consumers said they would pay a ransomAttack.Ransomto retrieve their financial data , and 55 percent of parents said they would payAttack.Ransomto have digital photos returned . With cybercriminals constantly upping their game in ransomware , small businesses and consumers have little choice but to remain vigilant and take “ simple steps ” to mitigate the risk of an attack , Palo Alto Networks ’ Olson says . In addition to keeping systems up-to-date with security updates , and taking precautions before opening attachments or clicking on links , he recommends maintaining offline backups—or cloud-based backups outside your network—to recover potentially compromised files .
Forcepoint security labs has identified a form of ransomware , first documented back in September 2016 that targets healthcare organisations . ‘ Philadelphia ’ , believed to be a new version of ‘ Stampedo ’ currently shows patterns that could be the beginning of a widening targeting campaign , extending beyond US perimeters . Sold for just a few hundred dollars and promoted on YouTube , it gives have-a-go criminals , on a global scale , the tools to conduct very targeted and convincing attacks . The attackAttack.Phishingis sentAttack.Phishingthrough a spear-phishing email containing tailored logos and staff names , adding to the deception . Once activated the variant communicates information including operating system , username , country and system code back to its command and control and generates a victim ID , bitcoin wallet ID and bitcoin ransom price . Carl Leonard , principal security analyst at Forcepoint , said : “ While processing our open source intelligence feeds we discovered Philadelphia , currently a cheap , poorly written ransomware that is available cheaply to script kiddies . Although the ransomAttack.Ransomis currently only 0.3 BTC , the command and control paths suggest that the actor is targeting hospitals for this campaign so there are likely to be other targets
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 .
Imagine turning on your smartphone to send a text and finding this threatening notice instead : “ You need to payAttack.Ransomfor us , otherwise we will sell portion of your personal information on black market every 30 minutes . WE GIVE 100 % GUARANTEE THAT ALL FILES WILL RESTORE AFTER WE RECEIVE PAYMENT . WE WILL UNLOCK THE MOBILE DEVICE AND DELETE ALL YOUR DATA FROM OUR SERVER ! TURNING OFF YOUR PHONE IS MEANINGLESS , ALL YOUR DATA IS ALREADY STORED ON OUR SERVERS ! WE STILL CAN SELLING IT FOR SPAM , FAKE , BANK CRIME etc . We collect and downloadAttack.Databreachall of your personal data . All information about your social networks , Bank accounts , Credit Cards . We collectAttack.Databreachall data about your friends and family . '' This is the message , word for word , found recently by Oren Koriat and Andrey Polkovnichenko , a pair of mobile cybersecurity analysts at Check Point , a security firm in California . The smartphone on which it appeared was an Android model that had been compromised by smartphone ransomware . Ransomware has become a ubiquitous threat to personal-computer users . Criminals remotely access a victim 's computer and lock all the files using encryption software , offering to unlock the data in exchange for a paymentAttack.Ransom. The first ransomware attackAttack.Ransomon a phone occurred in 2013 , according to the Check Point researchers , but until now has been confined to small numbers of victims , primarily in Eastern Europe . Now , the company says , the threat has gained a toehold in the United States . Koriat and Polkovnichenko found the software , which they dubbed Charger , embedded in an app called Energy Rescue , which purports to make a phone battery last longer . `` The infected app stealsAttack.Databreachcontacts and SMS messages from the user ’ s device and asks for admin permissions , '' the company said in a statement . `` If granted , the ransomware locks the device and displaysAttack.Ransoma message demanding paymentAttack.Ransom. '' The payment demandedAttack.Ransomwas 0.2 bitcoin , or about $ 180 at the current exchange rate . ( The phone was being used for business and did n't contain much personal data ; the owner chose to replace the phone rather than pay . ) The most disturbing part of the attack might be that the app was downloaded from the Google Play store . Android phones can use apps from other sources , but security experts usually recommend that users stick to the Play store to take advantage of the processes Google uses to check the software for safety . `` The main issue here is the fact that such a severe threat managed to penetrate Google 's security and enter Google Play , Google 's official app store , '' says Daniel Padon , another member of Check Point 's research team . `` Most malware that manages to enter Google Play has only slim malicious traits , while Charger is about as malicious as can be . As mobile ransomware try to keep the pace with their cousins in the PC world , we are likely to see more efforts of this sort , endangering users around the world . '' Padon added that this malware was particularly sophisticated , using a number of innovative tactics to evade detection by Google . Google commended the security firm for catching the Charger threat so early . `` We appreciate Check Point ’ s efforts to raise awareness about this issue , '' a Google spokesperson says . `` We ’ ve taken the appropriate actions in Play and will continue to work closely with the research community to help keep Android users safe . '' Ransomware attacks on mobile phones are still relatively rare . One well-known case involved users of pornography apps in Eastern Europe who were targeted by ransomware called DataLust , Check Point says . In those cases , the ransomAttack.Ransomwas set at 1,000 rubles , or about $ 15 . There 's evidence that Charger , too , comes from Eastern Europe—beyond the clichéd bad grammar of the ransom note . `` This is likely done to keep the developers from being prosecuted in their own countries or being extradited between countries . '' Ransomware attacksAttack.Ransomare joining a growing list of threats to mobile phone securit