City officials suspected that the attack began when an employee clicked on a link in a phishing email and provided their credentials. The Mayor had declared a ‘state of emergency’ and confirmed that the city had suffered a ransomware attack. The City of New Orleans has incurred a loss of $7 million, so far, to recover from a cyberattack incident that occurred in December 2019.
The encryption technology Microsoft uses to protect Windows file systems can be exploited by ransomware. So says the research team at Safebreach Labs, which has demonstrated how file-scrambling software nasties can not only tap into the Windows Encrypting File System but also avoid anti-malware tools.
In the first 10 months of 2019, a total of eight resolution agreements were made between the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and healthcare organizations. Each agreement included a steep fine, averaging more than $1.6 million, and corrective action plans that the organization is required to make to improve its cybersecurity program.
Breaching the networks of their victim organizations to deploy malware may not always be the ultimate motive of attackers. Cybercriminals have now gone one step ahead and are offering access to these compromised networks at different prices on underground markets.
