By Michael Hall, Chief Information Security Officer The malware attack that started in Eastern Europe in late June and quickly spread around the globe looks like it was not a ransom attack at all, but an all-out effort to destroy data, according to a security company that examined the program’s…
By Michael Hall, Chief Information Security Officer Last month, the ransomware known as WannaCry spread through the world at an astonishing rate, attacking hundreds of thousands of computers literally overnight and holding their data for ransom. In 2016, ransomware cost its victims approximately $1 billion. That’s $1 billion for all…
By Mike Cobb, Director of Engineering Last month, the WannaCry/WannaCrypt ransomware tore through hundreds of thousands of computers overnight in a worldwide onslaught. If you are a victim, there is hope. Through in-depth study of the WannaCry ransomware, Kaspersky Labs has discovered that the code was poorly written and contains…
By Mike Cobb, Director of Engineering As if the ransomware extortionists haven’t done enough damage already, today we are seeing a scheme in which victims are encouraged to infect their friends’ computers instead of paying the ransom. The new ransomware virus, known as Popcorn Time, offers the infected user the…
Originally published by CSO Online. …and the 3 steps you need to take next By Amy Bennet The word ransomware conjures images of kidnappers and ransom notes. But that doesn’t quite capture the reality of PC ransomware. In fact, “it’s not always obvious when ransomware is the problem,” says Mike Cobb,…
By Mike Cobb, Director of Engineering Ransomware is a quickly growing problem. There were nearly 2,500 cases of ransomware reported to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) in 2015 alone, and victims paid over 1.6 million dollars to unlock their data. 2016 is shaping up to show even larger…
