The demand for ransomware attacks on dark web skyrocketed in the last year, with the marketplace showing a growth of more than 2,500 percent, according to a new report. United States-based cybersecurity company Carbon Black published a study titled “the Ransomware Economy” earlier this week that shows ransomware attacks are becoming increasingly more accessible across the dark web and will likely continue to present a threat to users around the world.
The personal data of “millions” of Malaysian citizens has reportedly been listed for sale online in what could potentially be the biggest information leak in the country’s history. According to Malaysian technology website Lowyat, which has published screenshots of the exposed citizen data, an unknown seller was caught advertising the leak on its forums.
A new form of ransomware is being distributed via the same method as one of the most successful families of file-locking malware, and may represent a new evolution of the menace. Launched by malvertising attacks on compromised websites, the new ransomware is currently designed in such a way it only infects victims in South Korea. The ransomware is being delivered via the Magnitude exploit kit, which up until this point has predominantly been used to distribute Cerber – arguably the most successful family of ransomware of the year.
The official website of Transportstyrelsen, Sweden’s Transport Agency (STA) came under a series of DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks on Thursday morning forcing it to go offline. The attack on Transportstyrelsen came a day after the IT systems of Sweden’s Transport Administration (Trafikverket), which monitors railway traffic, was attacked by hackers leading to delays in trains schedule.
