New ransomware dubbed 'Bad Rabbit'
The Department of Homeland Security U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team issued an alert Tuesday for a new strain of ransomware called "Bad Rabbit." Here are six things to know about the newest ransomware strain hitting computer systems across the globe. The Bad Rabbit is suspected to be a variant of Petya ransomware, according to the US-CERT alert. A number of organizations in Russia, Ukraine and other Eastern European countries have reportedly fallen victim to attacks, ac
FirstHealth Attacked with New WannaCry Ransomware Variant
FirstHealth of the Carolinas, a Pinehurst, SC-based not for profit health network, has been attacked with a new WannaCry ransomware variant. WannaCry ransomware was used in global attacks in May this year. More than 230,000 computers were infected within 24 hours of the global attacks commencing. The ransomware variant had wormlike properties and can spread rapidly affecting all vulnerable networked devices. The campaign was blocked when a kill switch was identified and activ
Microsoft Outlook and Word DDE Attacks
In the last two weeks, Sophos researchers have kept an eye on a vulnerability in Microsoft’s Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) protocol used to send messages and share data between applications. On Friday, independent reports surfaced showing that it’s possible to run DDE attacks in Outlook using emails and calendar invites formatted using Microsoft Outlook Rich Text Format (RTF), not just by sending Office files attached to emails. In the original attack users had to be coaxed int
SiteLock: Website Attacks Surged 186% in Q2
Websites belonging to small- to midsized (SMB) businesses experienced an astonishing 63 attacks per day in the second quarter of this year, a study by SiteLock showed. That number, which extrapolates to some 23,000 attacks annually, represented an increase of 186% over the 22 attacks per day that websites averaged during the same period last year. Automated bots were responsible for more than 85% of these attacks. Despite the steep increase in attacks, many websites were inad
Ransomware Attack Cuts Access to X-Rays at Surgery Center
An Arkansas-based surgery center was recently hit by ransomware that not only shut down access to some electronic patient data but also rendered imaging files, including X-rays, inaccessible. The incident points to the need to carefully assess risks to all the diverse systems in use at healthcare organizations. The breach at the Arkansas Oral & Facial Surgery Center is listed on the Department of Health and Human Services' HIPAA Breach Reporting Tool website as a hacking/IT