Ransomware

Having consulted with cybersecurity experts and legal counsel, an Iowa school district has paid an undisclosed ransom after a cyber attack last month compromised the personal data of employees.

Election officials and others in state and local government need to be on guard against a variety of attempts that could impede voters’ access to information and smooth elections. A toolkit of free resources aims to help.

Higher ed’s complex array of systems creates a large attack surface, and institutions are likely to pay ransom. Meanwhile, K-12 schools struggle with cyber staffing but more often resist extortion, a global report finds.  

Across the United States, many local governments and states — as well as private companies — are discovering their cyber insurance premiums have skyrocketed and that they must meet stricter guidelines

The threat is fast, frequent and international. Keeping up may take stronger cross-border public-private partnerships, improved reporting rules, a higher national cybersecurity baseline and cryptocurrency payment disruptions.

The program, announced last week by Gov. Kathy Hochul, would provide county governments and select cities with endpoint detection and response tools to continuously monitor systems and protect against cyber attacks.

Attackers who penetrate an organization can evade detection by using the victims’ own cloud-based services to conduct their data exfiltration and malware downloads. This is the latest evolution of living off the land attacks.

The town of Frederick, Colo., is currently investigating claims about a breach in their network. Officials are working with digital forensics experts to determine exactly if and how the community might be impacted.

The new partnership with the cybersecurity ratings provider comes as more counties face ransomware, data breach and election risks. The idea is to provide enough data in quick enough fashion to head off those risks.

The grand jury last month released its 2021-22 final report on the California county and its seven cities' cybersecurity defenses. The report identified nine defined expectations for cybersecurity that each agency should have in place.

As affordable cyber insurance becomes more elusive, experts are reminding governments that insurance is only one piece of the puzzle and urging them to focus first on investing in cyber defenses.

Even as cryptocurrency investors deal with recent losses in value, public-sector interest in crypto continues to grow. That means more opportunities for fraud and more need for protections, the companies say.

On July 6, 2022, CISA issued a new national cyber awareness system alert nullAA22-187A). Here’s what you need to know — and do next.

Purchasing cyber defenses, training and insurance are budgeting decisions — and financial officers need number-driven risk models that show them how far each investment may go toward reducing risks of financial losses from cyber incidents.

In the wake of a cybersecurity breach over the weekend, an Iowa school district is putting programs on hold while investigators try to ascertain whether the incident was a ransomware attack or a data breach.

Almost a month after a cyber attack shut down its website and various other systems, the public community college has recovered phones, email and other functions while using in-person workarounds for others.

A cyber attack against the California public community college two weeks ago blocked access to network systems or took them offline. Administrators say they're approaching full recovery but aren't there yet.

As cybersecurity continues to concern state governments, many have turned to task forces to address issues such as ransomware, phishing and other threats. But what have they accomplished so far?