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‘Cuba’ Ransomware Gang Hits Payment Processor, Steals Data
A ransomware gang has hit a Seattle-based billing and payment processing provider. This highlights how criminals are both attacking businesses and also stealing and selling valuable personal information, regardless of whether or not the ransom is paid. Gangs are increasingly targeting service businesses with access to customers’ financial information. The ‘Cuba’ ransomware gang has taken credit for the hit against Automatic Funds Transfer Services, saying on its dedicated leaks site—reachable only via the anonymizing Tor...
read moreHealth Data Breach Tally Crowded with Vendor Incidents
Business Associate Breaches Affect Millions Nearly 1/3 of the major health data breaches added to the federal tally so far this year involve business associates, continuing a trend in recent years. A recent analysis by CI Security found that in the second half of 2020, nearly 75% of all records breached were tied to security incidents involving business associates. Currently, the HHS OCR website shows that 37 major breaches, affecting more than 4.5 million individuals, have been reported in 2021 and added to the tally so far this year. Of...
read moreFBI Issues Alert on Growing Egregor Ransomware Threat
Bureau and Security Experts Warn About Gang’s Effective Extortion Model The FBI issued a warning this week over the growing threat from the operators behind the Egregor ransomware variant and other cybercriminal gangs affiliated with the group. Since September, the Egregor gang and its affiliates claim to have compromised approximately 150 corporate networks in the U.S. and other countries. In some cases, the extortion demands have reached $4 million. Egregor appears to have a network of affiliated cybercriminals that...
read moreNew Ransomware Variant Could be the Next Big Malware Threat to Business
New Egregor ransomware has been gaining traction since emerging in September. A new form of ransomware is becoming increasingly prolific as cybercriminals turn to it as a preferred means of encrypting vulnerable networks in an effort to exploit bitcoin from victims. Egregor ransomware first emerged in September but has already become notorious following several high-profile incidents, including attacks against Barnes & Noble and video game companies Ubisoft and Crytek. According to cybersecurity researchers at Digital Shadows, Egregor...
read moreCybercrime: 10 Top Tactics and Trends
From Ransomware and DDoS to Malware and SIM Swapping: Europol Describes Latest Threats According to the seventh annual Internet Organized Crime Threat Assessment, produced by Europol ransomware attacks remain the top cyber-enabled threat. But phishing, business email compromises and other types of fraud – many now using a COVID-19 theme – also loom large. Here are 10 of the top threats from the Europol report in alphabetical order. 1. Business Email Compromise BEC attacks continue to rise, Europol warns. “As criminals are...
read moreMicrosoft Warns of Office 365 Phishing Attacks
Microsoft’s Security Intelligence team is warning users of the Office 365 suite about an ongoing phishing campaign that appears to be harvesting victims’ credentials. The phishing emails, which are currently circulating, use several techniques to bypass and evade secure email gateways. The criminals use social engineering techniques and timely subject lines relevant to remote work, like password updates, conferencing info, and helpdesk tickets, as a way to lure victims into clicking the emails and inputting their credentials,...
read moreAutomated Cyber Attack Payment Card Skimming Hits 2,000 E-Commerce Sites
Researchers: Hackers May Have Used Magento Zero-Day Exploit In the largest automated hacking campaign since at least 2015, from September 11-14, malicious JavaScript skimming code was injected into nearly 2,000 e-commerce sites that were running an older version of Adobe’s Magento software, possibly resulting in the theft of payment card data. It was the largest automated campaign on record, surpassing a breach in July 2019 that hacked 962 stores in a single day. From September 11th through the 14th, security researchers spotted 10...
read moreHefty HIPAA Fine After Breach Involving ‘The Dark Overlord’
Regulator: Georgia Clinic Showed ‘Systemic Noncompliance’ Federal regulators have announced a $1.5 million HIPAA settlement with Athens Orthopedic Clinic in Georgia, stemming from a 2016 breach involving The Dark Overlord hacking group that exposed the records of nearly 209,000 individuals. The exposed PHI included name, date of birth, SSN, patient demographic information, clinical information, and financial/billing information. The case serves to indicate the potentially hefty cost of failure to implement a comprehensive HIPAA...
read morePhishing Campaign Spoofs SBA Loan Offer
A newly discovered phishing campaign is spoofing a U.S. Small Business Administration loan offer in an attempt to steal banking credentials and other personal data. This campaign appears to have started in early August. This follows a different phishing attack in April that also used spoofed SBA messages, but unlike the current scam, that one was created to distribute malware. Fake Loan Applications In the phishing campaign, the victims are asked to fill out an attached “disaster loan assistance” form that asks for personal and...
read moreEmerging Risk Management Issue: Vendors Hit by Ransomware
Two recent ransomware incidents targeted companies serving healthcare organizations, highlighting an emerging challenge for vendor risk management in the sector. Blackbaud, which sells cloud-based marketing, fundraising, and customer relationship management software, was recently hit by ransomware. Some of its affected clients are now being revealed. Meanwhile, medical debt collector firm R1 RCM, formerly known as Accretive Health, also has been hit by ransomware. The Chicago-based R1 RCM security incident is just the latest in a string of...
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