Cybersecurity

Answer: With fake fixes.

The Superior Court of Los Angeles County was hit by ransomware Friday, disrupting “many critical systems.” The courthouses remained closed Monday as the jurisdiction worked to recover from the cyber attack.

The Municipal Local Cybersecurity Grant Program is doling out nearly $7 million to cities and towns, regional school districts, and other local governments within the state.

Several recently released cyber industry reports show steady or growing ransomware numbers in 2024 so far, and impacts on business and government have never been greater.

The state is giving the city of Port and the town of Merrimac more than $76,000 in grants to enhance their postures. It will go toward updating incident response plans and improving their ability to respond to an attack.

A flawed update for cybersecurity software from the company CrowdStrike caused many Windows machines to crash. Around the globe, hospitals, airlines, 911 services, banks and others reported disruptions.

The University of Michigan said its public safety department's phone system was down Friday, and some faculty and students might be affected. Henry Ford College also had to close for the day.

The question is front of mind for U.S. influencers and many small businesses as lawmakers threaten to ban the Chinese-owned social media app that's become a cornerstone of Internet culture and e-commerce.

The Ada County Sheriff’s Office spotted “unusual activity” and “proactively” deactivated computer-aided dispatch. Officials are working with third-party cybersecurity and data forensics consultants to investigate.

Revisions to the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Security Policy affect all entities who have access to that data, including education departments, police, vendors and more.

Yolo County is proactively enhancing the security and trustworthiness of its online presence by transitioning all county professional email accounts and webpages from the ".org" domain to the ".gov" domain.

In partnership with professionals in the field, professors from Sul Ross State University and the University of Scranton-Pennsylvania gave area high schoolers hands-on experiences and exercises in cybersecurity.

A man on the FBI’s most wanted list for nearly 10 years has been sentenced in Lincoln, Neb., to federal prison time. He will receive a nine-year sentence for crimes that snared the University of Vermont Medical Center and others.

As schools face the reality of being the No. 1 target of cyber attacks in the U.S., they need cybersecurity strategies specific to their users and security tools interoperable with their particular tech ecosystems.

The incident, first publicly reported in October, appears to have not resulted in any victimizations by identity theft or fraud. It’s unclear how the data breach happened, but the city’s Law Department has notified those affected.

Experts say crypto ATMs have become a vehicle for international criminal enterprises, and that millions of dollars’ worth of fraud is carried out using the machines in the U.S. alone.

Preparations for the Paris Summer Olympics have been going on for years. And given the expected global audience and international participation, cybersecurity is at the center of the action.

Researchers at the University of Missouri say the automation and speed of large language models could be useful in cyber defense, but they can’t yet replace human cybersecurity experts.