Breach Prevention Blog

Welcome to the latest edition of security news in review. In this biweekly roundup, we collect news on attacks and threats that may have an impact on your business. Today, we have stories on REvil encrypting hundreds of organizations at once, the Babuk Locker ransomware being used in a brand new campaign, the PrintNightmare vulnerability’s potential impact on domain controllers, and reporting that Microsoft digitally signed a rootkit driver.

Read on for the news. 

Cybercriminals have pounced on the COVID-19 crisis, made clear by the number of ransomware attacks increasing by at least 150 percent in 2020. As a follow-on consequence, organizations have started purchasing cyber insurance policies to hedge against the financial risk of a successful cyber attack. 

This week we have good news and bad news. On the one hand, a COO was caught and charged with potentially attacking a rival medical institution. A stolen data marketplace was shut down and bugs were found (all around). However, there has also been an increase in high-profile cyber-attacks. Keep reading to get this week’s top cybernews.

This week in Security News in Review, you’ll find plans from the U.S. government on disrupting threat actor networks, more action from the DarkSide gang, and FIN7 masquerading as a security analysis firm. 

Has there ever been a threat to your business risk quite like a ransomware attack? One that strikes without warning to cripple a company almost instantly; one that afflicts organizations regardless of their size, industry, or importance; or one that appears so unstoppable even to the well-prepared?

In this week’s edition of Security News in Review, we have stories about the U.S. Department of Homeland Security calling for mandatory disclosure of ransom payments, reports about the Babuk ransomware shutting down, and the revelation that a German police operation uninstalled Emotet. 

For healthcare end-users, the impact of a cyberattack does not quickly fade. That's according to Morphisec's 2021 Consumer Healthcare Cybersecurity Threat Index. Our survey of over 1,000 US consumers found that within the past year, 20 percent of people were impacted by a cyberattack or data breach due to one of their healthcare providers. Compared to last year, when 21 percent of consumers said the same thing, our research shows that consumer awareness of healthcare cyberattacks is becoming alarmingly consistent. 

With attacks increasing by 140 percent between 2018 and 2019, the threat from ransomware was growing long before the COVID-19 pandemic began. Last year, however, thanks to a perfect storm of unfortunate circumstances, the trend line for ransomware growth has gone vertical.

Introduction

The developers of the Phobos ransomware have added new fileless and evasive techniques to their arsenal. Constantly keeping their attack up to date helps them bypass detection technologies through several distinct approaches, the latest of which we detail in this blog. 

In this week’s edition of Security News in Review, there’s new stories about the ransomware attack that locked up Acer’s computer systems, insight into how many Microsoft Exchange servers remain unpatched, and some theorizing on whether takedowns of cybercrime networks are valuable.