Tag: app-subdomain-redirection:kaspersky-anti-virus

Ransomware sounds terrifying. A hacker steals all of your data and then holds you ransom to either give it back or not release it out onto the internet. The truth is, however, that it is mostly big institutions that get held hostage rather than personal internet users as these institutions can’t afford the downtime that comes with losing access to all their data. Unfortunately, this reality is taking its toll on education institutions in the US, with ransomware attacks costing schools and colleges billions of dollars.

A report by Comparitech has brought to light that in 2021 there were 67 individual ransomware attacks affecting 954 schools and colleges. Interestingly, this represents a decrease in the number of attacks from the year before when 83 attacks affected 1,753 institutions. Unfortunately, however, the costs of these attacks remained astronomical with schools and colleges facing demands of between $100,000 and a staggering $40 million.

The analysis also shows the disruption these types of attacks cause too, with downtime ranging from a little time offline for the institutions that had adequate backups to up to months and months of working downtime for those without proper protections.

Cybersecurity specialists Kaspersky have also recently released a report into Ransomware but instead focused on the 8 most common ransomware groups who are pulling off the attacks. The Kaspersky researchers named the 8 most common ransomware groups as:

1. Conti/Ryuk
2. Pysa
3. Clop (TA505)
4. Hive
5. Lockbit2.0
6. RagnarLocker
7. BlackByte
8. BlackCat

The Kaspersky report is very in-depth and is aimed at, “SOC analysts, threat hunting teams, cyberthreat intelligence analysts, digital forensics specialists and cybersecurity specialists that are involved in the incident response process and/or want to protect the environment they are responsible for from targeted ransomware attacks.” The objective of the report is to help build an understanding of Ransomware and ultimately defend against it. That means that, ultimately, it would be very useful for the types of teams running security in the schools and colleges mentioned above. The report is available to download here.

This news clearly highlights the repercussions that come from falling foul of malware attacks such as Ransomware. Although Ransomware mostly target institutions there are plenty of personal-level user attacks and threats out there that you need to defend yourself against. You can use antivirus programs like Kaspersky to keep you ahead of the game but at the very least you need to know how to get the most out of Windows Defender.

Image via: Comparitech

You have to give hackers and cybercriminals credit because they are always coming up with innovative new ways to infect your devices and steal your data and money. The Securelist team at Kaspersky have discovered a new “fileless” type of malware that allows las stage Trojans to be hidden in plain sight in the file system.

The Kaspersky team say that this is the first time they have witnessed such an innovative form of cyberattack in the wild and that it was the breadth and scale of the sophistication and the number of commercial malware tools put to use in the attack.

What is so malicious about this new type of attack is that it is completely covert. Once a victim has downloaded a compromised RAR file they will be none the wiser as the corrupted files are then injected directly into the Windows system itself, as well as trusted programs. The objective of the attacks is to insert Trojans that can grant and escalate user privileges, download files from URLs, run arbitrary instructions and even take and share screenshots.

The complex nature of this attack means that the only way to defend against it is to ensure it never gets anywhere near any of your devices. You need to be very careful when downloading files from the internet and only ever hit download if you completely trust the source of the download.

Fortunately, when it comes to staying safe online, we have you covered. We’ve got everything from Windows security tips to online safety guides. Be sure to check them out and keep yourself protected whenever you are interacting with online websites and messages from unknown third parties.

Image via: Santeri Viinamäki (Wikimedia)