Tag Archive for: bring

Ransomware comic looks to bring detective noir to the computer age

/in


“What do you know about Johnstown, Pennsylvania?”

“I know it rains.”

“Well grab your rain boots. I have a ransomware incident at Gotham Steel and I need your help.”

“Ransomware? Must be a day that ends in Y…”

Thus begins the new saga of Johnny Dollar, a fictional private detective turned insurance investigator whose old school, noir-ish, crime-fighting escapades are being reset decades into the future to tackle one of the most pressing and disruptive crimes of the digital age: digital extortion.

Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar began as a radio serial on Feb. 18, 1949. Johnny, a hard-boiled private dick in the mold of Phillip Marlowe or Sam Spade, earned his paycheck solving crimes for hire, chasing down mafiosos, murderers and fraudsters. The series ran for more than 800 episodes on CBS Radio before eventually ending in 1962.

Today, his story is being relaunched in the form of a new comic book being created by Allan Liska, an analyst at cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. Like Liska, the new Johnny Dollar will be spending his days investigating ransomware crimes and helping victims whose world has been turned upside down by ruthless gangs of criminals who use computers instead of guns to carry out their criminal schemes.

Insurance investigator Johnny Dollar gets the scoop on an emerging ransomware attack at a steel mill in Pennsylvania. (Source: Allan Liska)

Liska – as he takes pains to point out in an interview – is not quite old enough to have caught show during its original run, but he does have fond memories of listening to old radio shows Sunday nights while studying as a high school student. He’d catch Casey Kasem’s Top 40, then switch over Superman and the Lone Ranger, but “my absolute favorite one was Johnny Dollar.”

Unlike Superman and the Lone Ranger, no one ever made a successful follow up about Johnny Dollar after it’s radio run (several short-lived efforts to make a TV show never made it past the pilot-stage), something that allowed the franchise to lapse into public domain.

That provided an opening for Liska to create a new version of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, this time set in modern times and focused – like his work – on the scourge of…

Source…

Statewide Bans on Ransomware Payments Bring New Challenges

/in


Cyber criminals will keep making ransomware attacks as long as they see profits outweigh the effort and risks. Some states have responded by prohibiting state and local government entities from paying the extortionists — a move North Carolina and Florida took in 2021 and 2022, respectively, and which several others have mulled as well.

State bans like these keep taxpayer money from funding cyber crime, but such small-level, standalone prohibitions are unlikely to have a big impact on the ransomware problem, said Jen Ellis — Institute for Security and Technology (IST) adjunct senior policy adviser and Ransomware Task Force co-chair — in response to a Government Technology question during an IST webinar.

A nationwide ban applying to both public- and private-sector victims would reach farther, however, and past years have seen cyber researchers debate the pros and cons. Deputy National Security Adviser Anne Neuberger said in May that federal officials had “grappled” with the question of whether to ban most extortion payments while allowing the federal government to grant waivers.


If the U.S. means to do so, there are plenty of risks and challenges to consider, cyber experts said during yesterday’s webinar.

That includes introducing and launching such a policy.

Silas Cutler is an adjunct senior cyber threat adviser at IST and a principal reverse engineer at cybersecurity company Stairwell. He worried that busy small-business owners may not be keeping up with the latest cybersecurity legislation and could accidentally commit a crime if they pay after a hypothetical ban passes. That would give cyber attackers leverage to keep extorting the businesses in exchange for keeping the fact of the payment quiet.

Another concern is attackers are likely to respond to a payment ban by testing how well it sticks. Attackers may intensify their focus on the victims most likely to feel compelled to pay, such as small- to medium-sized businesses — which may not be able to stay afloat during an interruption to their operations — and essential service and critical infrastructure providers where “disruption isn’t really…

Source…

If kid’s game gets infected, you may bring that to work: what to do?

/in


“That cheating software your kid downloaded for his game is probably safe,” said not a single cybersecurity specialist, ever. At best, your kid will ruin the gaming experience for others. At worst, they’ll introduce malware to their device. Due to repeated incidents, Cybernews experts recommend keeping kids’ gaming platforms separate, virtually or physically, or consider sandboxing their games.

Some kids would do a lot to become a mafia boss LVL 50. In this case, parents were left deeply frustrated to discover that their child had become engrossed in a mobile game called Grand Mafia. Unbeknownst to them, the child had made a whopping 62 transactions using their credit card between September 4th and October 8th, 2022.

These transactions amounted to €1,240, and to add to their frustration, Revolut declined to reimburse the unauthorized charges, a report from the regulating authority reveals.

And this isn’t even the most significant risk that parents can face if they leave their kid’s actions online unchecked. Malware, likely, was not a culprit here, so the kid might be able to keep their impressive mafia boss level.

Recent game hacks reveal that crooks could steal not only your kid’s loot and the accounts they spent years grinding, but also remotely control their computer and spread infections to other devices.

For example, if you are logged in with your Google account in Chrome on the same compromised computer, all the malicious extensions and add-ons that hackers put here may automatically sync in your work computer if the same Google account is used.

Minecraft has been declared the most malware-infected game. Recently, cybercriminals used Minecraft Mods to execute code remotely, after a Bleeding Pipe vulnerability was discovered. Mods in the Minecraft community are used extensively, and the game is one of the most popular.

Bad actors used the technique to steal the game’s servers, personal game accounts, Steam, and Discord session info. Still, the possibilities are nearly endless as they could also steal user data for use in identity theft and use computers in botnet attacks while showing the user pop-ads.

Roblox, the other very popular game among kids,…

Source…

No to pension reform and war, bring down Macron!

/in


This statement was distributed by members of the Parti de l’égalité socialiste (PES-Socialist Equality Party) at demonstrations in Paris, Marseille and Amiens on June 6 on the 14th day of action against French President Macron’s pension cut.

Today, workers and young people across France will march against Emmanuel Macron’s illegitimate pension reform. The desperate attempt by the union bureaucracies to move on from the struggle against Macron and against the capitalist state, by suspending the mobilizations between May 1 and June 6, has not succeeded. Despite this delay of several weeks between the days of action, the fight against Macron continues.

Protesters march during a rally in Bayonne, southwestern France, Tuesday, June 6, 2023. [AP Photo/Bob Edme]

A wave of strikes is shaking not only France but all of Europe. Workers in Italy are demonstrating against Meloni’s far-right government and its austerity and war policies, and strikes are rocking the UK, Portugal, Belgium and Germany. In France, the workers of Vertbaudet, Disney, transport, at the Post Office carried out strikes against the social cuts and for better wages.

However, after a truce with Macron imposed by the union bureaucracies, the questions of political perspective and organization are urgently facing the workers. To lead the fight against Macron, the banks and their policy of wage austerity, workers must organize independently of the bureaucracies which demobilize the movement, and fight to bring down Macron through a general strike.

As a Ukrainian offensive causes thousands of deaths and injuries in a fratricidal war between Russians and Ukrainians armed by NATO, the French National Assembly has voted the Military Programming Law (MPL). It increases the military budget by 40 percent, from 297 to €413 billion between 2024 and 2030. It spends billions on cyber warfare, nuclear weapons and ammunition stockpiles in order to build the “economy of European war” wanted by Macron.

Source…