Tag Archive for: prey’

Prominent Sacramento law firm sues for $1 million after falling prey to ransomware attack

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A prominent Sacramento law firm that represents police officers and sheriff’s deputies in the capital region is suing a computer firm for more than $1 million alleging that, after hiring the company to provide cybersecurity, the law firm was hit with a ransomware attack.

The Mastagni Holstedt law firm filed the suit in Sacramento Superior Court this week against Lantech LLC, claiming that because of the cyberattack last year, Mastagni Holstedt was forced to pay a ransom to regain access to its data.

An office manager at Lantech who would not give her name Wednesday morning declined to comment when reached by phone, saying she knew nothing about the suit, which names Lantech, former Lantech owner Terry Berg and backup computer data storage company Acronis Inc.

Lantech did not respond to a subsequent email request for comment, and Acronis denied any responsibility for the cyberattack.

Law firm founder Davis Mastagni also did not respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit alleges the attack came from a group known as “Black Basta,” a Russian-speaking group first detected in early 2022 that has been blamed for hundreds of ransomware attacks that have resulted in payments of more than $100 million by firms seeking to retrieve data.

“In its first two weeks alone, at least 20 victims were posted to its leak site, a Tor site known as Basta News,” according to a March 2023 “threat profile” by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Information Security. “It exclusively targets large organizations in the construction and manufacturing industries, but was also observed to target other critical infrastructure, including the health and public health sector.

“While primarily targeting organizations within the United States, its operators also expressed interest in attacking other English-speaking countries’ organizations in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Threat actors that used the ransomware have additionally impacted organizations based in the United States, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France, and the Netherlands.”

The group has extorted at least $107 million in bitcoin from targets, according to a November report by Reuters news…

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Motilal Oswal falls prey to cyber-attack by ransomware group LockBit, shares fall 2%

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Shares of Motilal Oswal Financial Services fall over two percent in early trade on February 19 after the domestic broking firm was targeted in a cyber-attack by ransomware group LockBit, according to TechCrunch.

The ransomware group added Motilal Oswal to its dark web leak site on Tuesday, in an attempt to blackmail the brokerage for ransom payments. On failure to meet their demands, LockBit threatened to make all the stolen data public.

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At 9.17 am, shares of the brokerage were quoting Rs 1,800 apiece on the NSE, down 2.1 percent.

The domestic brokerage has around six million clients, with total assets under management of around $53 billion.

A spokesperson for the company did not respond to Moneycontrol queries.

India’s Computer Emergency Response Team was in the process of taking all appropriate action, according to the TechCrunch report.

Last year, LockBit launched cyber attacks on Granules India and public sector enterprise National Aerospace Laboratories. The gang is one of the most prolific ransomware gangs of all time, who have previously attacked IT major Accenture, UK’s Royal Mail, Boeing, and the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China.

“This had a major effect on the operations of our business due to significant changes in our IT systems and the time needed for meeting the regulatory expectations, qualifications, recertifications, and fine-tuning of quality and production systems,” the company said.

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Motilal Oswal Financial Services provides various diversified financial services in India. It offers a range of financial products and services, such as wealth management, retail broking and distribution, institutional broking, asset management, commodity broking, private equity, investment banking, and principal strategies.

Over the past one month, shares of Motilal Oswal Financial Services have gained more than 15 percent, with shares settling…

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Avoid falling prey to employment scams – Rexburg Standard Journal

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Avoid falling prey to employment scams  Rexburg Standard Journal

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Hackers prey on public schools, adding stress amid pandemic | Health

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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — For teachers at a middle school in New Mexico’s largest city, the first inkling of a widespread tech problem came during an early morning staff call.

On the video, there were shout-outs for a new custodian for his hard work, and the typical announcements from administrators and the union rep. But in the chat, there were hints of a looming crisis. Nobody could open attendance records, and everyone was locked out of class rosters and grades.

Albuquerque administrators later confirmed the outage that blocked access to the district’s student database — which also includes emergency contacts and lists of which adults are authorized to pick up which children — was due to a ransomware attack.

“I didn’t realize how important it was until I couldn’t use it,” said Sarah Hager, a Cleveland Middle School art teacher.

Cyberattacks like the one that canceled classes for two days in Albuquerque’s biggest school district have become a growing threat to U.S. schools, with several high-profile incidents reported since last year. And the coronavirus pandemic has compounded their effects: More money has been demanded, and more schools have had to shut down as they scramble to recover data or even manually wipe all laptops.

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“Pretty much any way that you cut it, incidents have both been growing more frequent and more significant,” said Doug Levin, director of the K12 Security Information Exchange, a Virginia-based nonprofit that helps schools defend against cybersecurity risk.

Precise data is hard to come by since most schools are not required to publicly report cyberattacks. But experts say public school systems — which often have limited budgets for cybersecurity expertise — have become an inviting target for ransomware gangs.

The pandemic also has forced schools to turn…

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