Organizations lost $2.7 billion to Internet-enabled theft, fraud and exploitation in 2018, with business e-mail compromise scams resulting in the highest of these financial losses, according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).
extortion
Sextortionist Campaigns Get Personal, Creative to Force Payouts
Two security firms warn of a flurry of “sextortion” campaigns recently that use new, creative and sometimes extreme methods that leverage personal information, sex-related activity and even death threats to spur victims to pay thousands in ransom fees to hackers.
It’s the Corruption, Stupid: why Russians aren’t the biggest threat to Election Security
In-brief: Russian hackers aren’t the biggest threat to the security and integrity of elections says Bev Harris of Black Box Voting. Instead, it’s a more common enemy: run of the mill political corruption, mostly at the local level. Also: Eric Hodge of CyberScout talks about the challenges of helping states secure their election systems. Problem number one: recalcitrant voting machine makers.
Podcast: Passwords are dying, but they’re not going anywhere
In-brief: Companies like Microsoft and Google have both unveiled initiatives that de-emphasize the traditional, static, alpha-numeric password in recent days. So is the password going the way of the horse and buggy? Don’t be so sure, says Robert Capps of the firm NuData. Capps thinks that passwords will be with us for the foreseeable future and that companies concerned about security need to do more than just find a more secure way to log-in.
Update: It’s Time To Stop Ransomware Shaming!
In-brief: It’s time to stop the ransomware shaming. The truth is that successful ransomware infections are children with many fathers – from lax security practices to vulnerable software. Update: added comment from Dodi Glenn of PC Pitstop. PFR 2/21/2015.
