Ransomware encrypts or steals data to disrupt operations and extort victims, making backups, access controls, and incident response essential.
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Background for this topic.
Ransomware is malware used to deny access to systems or data, usually by encrypting files and demanding payment for decryption. Many operations also steal sensitive information and threaten to publish it, so an attack can create both an availability crisis and a privacy or disclosure risk. Initial access may involve phishing, stolen credentials, exposed remote services, or exploitation of unpatched vulnerabilities; attackers may then move through the network before deploying the payload.
Defenses should combine vulnerability management, phishing-resistant authentication where practical, endpoint and network monitoring, and backups that are isolated from routine administrator access and regularly tested for recovery. Organizations should also limit privileges and segment critical systems to reduce the blast radius. An incident requires rapid containment, preservation of forensic evidence, restoration from known-good backups, and assessment of notification, legal, and regulatory obligations. Threat intelligence can help identify relevant criminal infrastructure or tactics, but it does not replace sound access control, patching, detection, and recovery practices.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warns of AvosLocker ransomware being used in attacks targeting multiple US critical infrastructure sectors. [...]
This week, the automotive industry has been under attack, with numerous companies exhibiting signs of breaches or ransomware activity. [...]
Cybersecurity firm Emsisoft has released a free decryption tool to help Diavol ransomware victims recover their files without paying a ransom. [...]
Google's Threat Analysis Group has exposed the operations of a threat actor group dubbed "EXOTIC LILY," an initial access broker linked to the Conti and Diavol ransomware operations. [...]
Windows admins were hit today by a wave of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint false positives where Office updates were tagged as malicious in alerts pointing to ransomware behavior detected on their systems. [...]
The ransomware space was very active in the last quarter of 2021, with threat analysts observing 722 distinct attacks deploying 34 different variants. [...]
DENSO has published an announcement to confirm that its German business computer network was accessed by an unauthorized third party on March 10, 2022, resulting in a data breach. [...]