City of Oakland declares state of emergency after ransomware attack
Oakland has declared a local state of emergency because of the impact of a ransomware attack that forced the City to take all its IT systems offline on February 8th. [...]
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.
Oakland has declared a local state of emergency because of the impact of a ransomware attack that forced the City to take all its IT systems offline on February 8th. [...]
Hackers conducting a new financially motivated campaign are using a variant of the Xortist commodity ransomware named 'MortalKombat,' together with the Laplas clipper in cyberattacks. [...]
A new ransomware group going by the name 'DarkBit' has hit Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, one of Israel's leading research universities. The ransom note posted by DarkBit is littered with messaging protesting tech layoffs and promoting anti-Israel rhetoric, as well as the group demanding a $1.7 million payment. [...]
A new ransomware group going by the name 'DarkBit' has hit Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, one of Israel's leading research universities. The ransom note posted by DarkBit is littered with messaging protesting tech layoffs and promoting anti-Israel rhetoric, as well as the group demanding a $1.7 million payment. [...]