In-brief: The weekend hack of civil defense sirens in Dallas, Texas is similar to two incidents in Illinois in 2012. The underlying problem? Woeful security for emergency alerting and other civil defense systems in the U.S., according to security experts.
In-brief: A cyber attack in December was responsible for a power outage in Ukraine – almost a year to the day after a similar attack in 2015, new research shows.
In-brief: Five predictions about the cyber threats and security challenges that 2017 has in store for us.
San Francisco’s Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA) was hit with a ransomware attack over the weekend, disrupting a number of agency computer systems including email, the MTA said in a statement on Sunday. And security experts say that the ransomware used has a reputation for virulence. Computer terminals observed at MTA (or “Muni”) stations displayed a message that read, in part, “You Hacked. All Data Encrypted” over the weekend, paralyzing toll collection operations and forcing the MTA to open its turnstiles and let the public ride for free. According to a report by The San Francisco Examiner claims that the ransomware thieves have infected more than 2,000 of the agency’s 8,000 computers, affecting not only fare collection, but also systems that assign routes to bus drivers. The thieves are demanding $73,000 in ransom, paid in bitcoin. In a statement on Sunday, San Francisco MTA said that the attack “disrupted some of our […]
In-brief: researchers working in Canada and Israel have created a proof of concept Internet worm that spreads between connected devices, including connected lightbulbs, according to a paper published online.
