Tag Archive for: 13th

The Week in Ransomware – May 13th 2022

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Lock with an evil face

While ransomware attacks have slowed during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions, the malware threat continues to affect organizations worldwide.

This can be seen with Costa Rica declaring a national emergency after suffering a massive IT systems outage caused by a Conti Ransomware attack in April.

These outages are impacting public services, including requiring people to pay taxes at banks rather than online.

This declaration comes soon after the US government offered a $15 million reward for the location and identification of Conti ransomware members.

Secureworks also analyzed the new REvil ransomware samples, confirming previous reports that the ransomware gang has returned. With the threat actors having both the REvil source code and Tor private keys, it is clear that the operation has returned in some manner.

Other news this week includes a technical analysis of Black Basta with the Conti gang denying they are involved in the new operation.

Contributors and those who provided new ransomware information and stories this week include: @jorntvdw, @Ionut_Ilascu, @Seifreed, @billtoulas, @PolarToffee, @VK_Intel, @fwosar, @malwareforme, @malwrhunterteam, @DanielGallagher, @demonslay335, @BleepinComputer, @serghei, @LawrenceAbrams, @struppigel, @FourOctets, @TrendMicro, @kaspersky, @Secureworks, @BrettCallow, @bofheaded, @pcrisk, @ValeryMarchive, @kevincollier, @andrewselsky, @Amigo_A_, and @petrovic082.

May 7th 2022

US offers $15 million reward for info on Conti ransomware gang

The US Department of State is offering up to $15 million for information that helps identify and locate leadership and co-conspirators of the infamous Conti ransomware gang.

New Kekpop ransomware

Petrovic found a new ransomware that appends the .kekpop extension and drops a ransom note named ReadMe.html.

May 9th 2022

Costa Rica declares national emergency after Conti ransomware attacks

The Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves has declared a national emergency following cyber attacks from Conti ransomware group on multiple government bodies.

REvil Development Adds Confidence About GOLD SOUTHFIELD Reemergence

Secureworks® Counter Threat Unit™ (CTU) researchers analyzed REvil…

Source…

This Week In Techdirt History: June 7th – 13th

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Five Years Ago

This week in 2015, legislators were working to take money from the DEA to buy bodycams for cops and calling for mandatory data collection on police shootings, while we took a look at the way (even with cameras) cops and the media cooperate to disparage victims of police violence and paint every kill as a “good” kill, and how law enforcement stretches the definition of “reasonable suspicion” to cover just about everything and make the 4th Amendment useless in lots of cases. Meanwhile, there were efforts to shut down bulk phone record collection during the transition to the new USA Freedom Act, but the DOJ had different ideas and the House Intelligence Committee was working to block the Privacy & Civil Liberties Board from doing its job. Canada, in the mean time, passed its own “anti-terror” bill to take away civil liberties.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2010, we saw a terrible court ruling that said forwarding a link can be considered defamation, while the UK was considering a new libel law that was a mixed bag at best, and Andrew Cuomo kicked off his recently-announced campaign for Governor of New York by threatening to sue a social network for its users’ actions. Meanwhile, many targets of the US Copyright Group’s shakedown scheme were claiming their innocence while another law firm that tried to get in on the racket was suing WordPress over critical blogs. We debunked the ludicrous idea that pirated handheld games have cost the economy $ 41.6-billion, and the idea that the RIAA is a success, and also pointed out how Hollywood’s constant copyright lawsuits were at odds with its celebration of rampant copyright infringement in the show Glee — nearly as hilariously ironic as the New York Times getting confused about its own RSS feed and ordering takedown of an iPad RSS reader.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2005, we saw an early case of an artist being shut down for offering torrents of their own content, while the UK’s new Creative Minister was fighting to expand copyright to stop Elvis Presley songs from hitting the public domain, Sweden’s private recording industry police got a wrist-slap for breaking the rules, and the press was patting itself on the back for parroting the recording industry’s misleading statements and studies. And always-on-the-ball Sony was repeating its mistakes with the Aibo robotic dog when it came to the PSP, by doing everything possible to block hackers and modders from making the device more useful.

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This Week In Techdirt History: July 7th – 13th

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Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, an analysis of the Snowden leaks demonstrated that the NSA was clearly lying when it said he didn’t have access to actual surveillance data, while the agency apologists were out in force. Then, a new release from the leak revealed that the FBI was directly spying on prominent Muslim-American politicians, garnering a weaselly non-denial from James Clapper. We also got a look at the FBI doing the bidding of the CIA, which sent agents after an employee over a FOIA request, while the wiretap report from the US Courts system revealed the surveillance nightmare of day-to-day drug enforcement, and the ACLU was digging into the militarization of police across the country.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, the RIAA was predictably trying to overstate the reach of its legal victory over Usenet.com, and also exaggerate the actions of Jammie Thomas as she sought a new trial. An appeals court punted on the chance to evaluate the constitutionality of the Copyright Royalty Board, while we got examples of the insanity of collection societies and anti-piracy groups around the world: the UK’s FACT (a private organization) appeared to have seized and kept computers from a criminal investigation, people in Germany were beginning to talk about the huge problems with GEMA, ASCAP was trying to demand public performance licenses for embedding YouTube videos, Sweden’s STIM was trying to charge companies that play music for employees, and SIIA’s quasi-ironic resurrection of the Don’t Coppy That Floppy campaign was based around a big lie about criminality.

Fifteen Years Ago

Something the RIAA wasn’t shouting loudly about in 2004 was CD sales — because they were on the rise and that didn’t fit with the sky-is-falling narrative about piracy. This was happening amidst the ongoing fragmentation nightmare in the world of music download stores, and while the BSA and MPAA were both out in force spreading flimsy numbers about piracy to be mindlessly parroted by reporters. The latter had also come up with a new insane plan for DVD screeners in award seasons: lock them to a single special DVD player that is also sent out to the judges.

Also this week in 2004: people were realizing that Gmail was a solid proof-of-concept for the viability of web applications, Yahoo was noticing this itself and purchased Oddpost for its email interface (which would become the new Yahoo Mail), and Nintendo’s persistence in going-its-own-way failed when it led Satoru Iwata to believe customers don’t want online games.

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