121–130 of 386 posts
The most important line: > 80% of organizations that paid the ransom were hit by a second attack, and almost half were hit by the same threat group. The same group!
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No, because for better or worse “he” is the default for a plurality or unknown gender in most (all?) romance languages, including English. Times and sensitivities change but “she” still connotes more knowledge than “he” so it’s bound to cause some confusion.
what was true centuries ago is no longer true. "he" is not gender neutral in English, in any sense of the term. it's only used as such in historical writing - languages evolve over time. "she" connotes as much knowledge as "he".
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Once the criminals start maintaining their own backups of victims data and helping them restore from rival attacks, they can successfully call themselves a mob. Somehow, that's a quite believable scenario.
If only organizations would backup their own data. Then they could just restore and avoid paying. I have a backup device of my own at home and that's the one I have to use. The company I work relies on some MSFT service that is pretty inflexible and won't back up the entire machine.
Doesnt this just mean that 80% of orgs that were hit with ransomware attacks just didn't bother to fix their infosec, and got hit again because they left the same holes open to be exploited? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
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The US government has negotiated with the Taliban (a formally designated terrorist group) for prisoner exchanges. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50471186
The "don't negotiate with terrorists" is itself a negotiation tactic meant to lower the attack surface of any entity. It's the sort of thing you say publicly, but then privately you settle with your adversary. Absolutism is never a useful tactic.
That sounds pretty absolutest.
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I mean couldn't government pay the ransom and then go great lengths to track the suspects and send special forces after them? Surely US govt. has the ability to track almost anyone. Having US govt. on your ass should a decent deterrent. Just take a look at how hard FBI came down on cartels and individuals who were involved in killing Enrique Camarena. Cartel leaders were arrested in Mexico and several individual in t…
It appears that some of the major ransomware gangs are operating from Russia and are tolerated by the government, as long as they don't hit domestic targets. The US cannot really send special forces there without risking a massive escalation.
Also, the US and allies can enforce Russian AML laws as written on paper. If, say, the UK freezes all of Oleg Deripaska's assets there, Vova will absolutely get the message. We're not going to bring down the Russian government with military force for a million different reasons, but doing it with sanctions and prosecution is a totally different story.
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Makes sense to me. From what I've read, it's pretty clear the ransom payment is for a one-time ability to get your data back. It's not advertised as some sort of permanent opt-out.
Everyone knows that once you find a loose slots machine, you keeping playing it.
The most important line: > 80% of organizations that paid the ransom were hit by a second attack, and almost half were hit by the same threat group. The same group!
Makes sense to me. From what I've read, it's pretty clear the ransom payment is for a one-time ability to get your data back. It's not advertised as some sort of permanent opt-out.
Looks like ransomware criminals are going for the subscription model.
Once the criminals start maintaining their own backups of victims data and helping them restore from rival attacks, they can successfully call themselves a mob. Somehow, that's a quite believable scenario.