Ransomware Attack on SF Metro Puts Bitcoin in Bad Light
The latest ransomware attack targets San Francisco municipal underground railway system. Hacker demands $73000 ransom in bitcoins. After the latest ransomware attack, the popular quote “Guns don’t kill people, People kill people” should be adapted to “Bitcoin doesn’t hack computers, People hack computers”. This time, the target was San Francisco Municipal Railways, better known as Muni. According to reports, the ransomware attack involving a variant of HDDCryptor malicious software crippled the busy urban transportation system earlier on Saturday. The Ransomware infection spread to over....
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In a ransomware attack, it is assumed that the hackers prefer the ransom being paid in bitcoin due to the anonymous nature of its transactions. It might not be true as the hackers are probably interested in bitcoin for entirely different reasons. Bitcoin and Ransomware, these words appear more frequently in a single sentence these days than we wish for. Ransomware attacks have become a common occurrence these days. We had earlier reported the use of Advertising network by cyber criminals to propagate ransomware to the computers belonging to the readers of some of the leading news websites.....
A global ransomware attack derived from a leaked NSA tool successfully breached into 100,000 computer systems and servers across 99 countries. During the first day of the attack, the focus was set on Bitcoin instead, which had minimal involvement in the ransomware attack, rather than the use of an NSA tool developed using taxpayers’ capital. What actually happened. On May 12, the WannaCry ransomware began to spread across the world, attacking 75,000 computers in a matter of hours. According to MalwareTech, WannaCry targeted and encrypted 100,000 computers in a period of 24 hours, quickly....
India has experienced the first ransomware attack on a small Ayurvedic pharmaceutical firm in the state of Punjab. Employees of a small Indian Ayurvedic pharmaceutical company were in for a shock recently after their systems were hit by a ransomware attack. The attack which happened last month was reported by the mainstream media only recently. According to media reports, servers of an Amritsar, Punjab-based Shri Dhanvantari Herbals were targeted by cyber criminals, infecting them with ransomware. The attack was discovered after the firm’s employees found themselves unable to log into....
Ransomware remains one of the most worrying threats to IT infrastructure in this day and age. Hackers are not worried about who they target with this malware, as long as there is a monetary gain on the horizon. The Los Angeles County health department is one of the latest targets in a major ransomware attack. This news comes on the heels of the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center facing a similar threat, forcing them to pay US$17,000 in Bitcoin to have access restored. Los Angeles County Health Department Attack. While this ransomware attack against the Los Angeles County Health....
On the 26th of November, the San Francisco Examiner reported the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) was hacked. Infected computers at Muni stations were reportedly downed by HDDCryptor ransomware, whose masters attempted to extort the station for bitcoin. As a result, passengers got a free ride throughout the weekend as the agency was forced to open up the gates, since they were unable to process fare payments. Muni ticket machines, kiosks, employee laptops, email and printed services, payroll systems and SQL databases were compromised according to The Register. Out of a....