Ransomware Spreads Like A Virus In The Cloud
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How does it work? Ransomware normally spreads through email phishing attacks, exploit kits, removable drives or external network shares. However, Virlock is a weird family of ransomware that not only encrypts files but also converts them into a polymorphic file infector just like a virus. Apart from infecting the usual documents and image related files, it also infects binary files. Yikes. Virlock has effectively weaponized every data file it encrypts, converting each one into a propagation vehicle for the malware itself. Read the whole story at the KnowBe4 Blog with links, a bunch of screenshots, schematics and how to mitigate if you get hit with this, because there is one silver lining that you need to know about: |
| Ransomware's Greatest Adversary: Employee Cyber Awareness |
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October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month, a great opportunity to strengthen your human firewall in the war against this ransomware epidemic. Here are two great bits of ammo if you need to get budget for IT security. First is an article that explains how ransomware causes downtime for sometimes a whole organization and how to boost cyber security awareness. I suggest you send this to the powers that be and cc HR while you are at it. This was written by a large insurance / reinsurance company: Next, the DHS site has lots of tools, hints and themes you can use. In their words: "October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month which is an annual campaign to raise awareness about cybersecurity. We live in a world that is more connected than ever before. The Internet touches almost all aspects of everyone’s daily life, whether we realize it or not. National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM) is designed to engage and educate public and private sector partners through events and initiatives to raise awareness about cybersecurity, provide them with tools and resources needed to stay safe online, and increase the resiliency of the Nation in the event of a cyber incident: |
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(Stu Siouweman @ CyberHeist) An obscure 2-year old ransomware strain called Virlock has a nasty feature: it is capable of stealthily spreading itself via cloud storage and collaboration apps. That way just one infected user can unknowingly spread the infection further across your network, Netskope researchers discovered. Virlock is borrowing from a wide range of threat techniques. - Log in to post comments
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Are Employees Still A Huge Security Risk
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(CyberHeist) Is security awareness training doing the job of protecting organizations from employee negligence? Michael Bruemmer of Experian Data Breach Resolution tells us where awareness is falling short, and what companies can do to improve. He helps companies with data breaches and knows what he is talking about - they handle more than 3,500 of these per year. Despite an increase in security awareness training, and concern about awareness by top-level management at companies, data breaches continue to happen through employee negligence, whether malicious or not. In the latest episode of Security Sessions, Joan Goodchild spoke with Bruemmer about a recent survey that said companies are unprepared to stop employee-caused data breaches. Worth 8 minutes of your time, watch this on a break: |
| 85% Of State CIOs Have Now Developed Security Awareness Training |
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"As cyberattacks grow in frequency and intensity, state governments have responded by adopting cyber security disruption plans, and the vast majority of states have now adopted a cyber security framework based on national standards and guidelines. According to the recent report “The 2016 State CIO Survey” from the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO), 94 percent of states CIOs have now adopted such a cyber security framework. That is up from 80 percent in 2015. Further, 85 percent of state CIOs have now developed security awareness training for workers and contractors, and 77 percent have created a culture of information security in state government." More: |
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