The federal government charged two Iranian men for orchestrating a nearly three-year-long international hacking and extortion scheme that deployed ransomware which to date has caused more than $30 million in losses to its victims, which include hospitals, municipalities and public institutions.
A small group of cybercriminals are responsible for the most damaging cyberattacks–often with the help of state sponsorship. Still, low-level criminal activity on the dark web still poses the most widespread and immediate security threat, with cryptocurrency mining, ransomware and malware all on the rise, a recent report has found.
A small Nigerian Internet service provider (ISP) hijacked traffic meant for Google data centers on Monday, re-routing local traffic through China and Russia and making some hosted services temporarily unavailable for users.
Two separate attacks on banks in the United States and Pakistan revealed this week highlight once again the inherent weakness of a security practice that relies on passwords or knowledge-based credentials to protect critical information.
Skilled operators make all the difference in incident response and threat hunting. With talent scarce (and expensive), however, managed threat hunting teams may be worth a look, writes Scott Taschler of the firm Crowdstrike.
