Although world renowned for its computer science programs, Georgia Tech has exposed the second data breach to occur at the school in less than a year. The news was announced yesterday and the potential fallout of exposed names, addresses, SSNs, and birth dates could affect 1.3 million current and former students.
Read all the details in the following link;
https://www.ajc.com/news/breaking-news/breaking-data-breach-exposes-georgia-tech-faculty-students/zAUUNWy5hoHQ8bNvMxcsWL/
New York capital hit by ransomware attack, taking services offline
Albany, NY is just the latest city to become a victim of ransomware, the city announced Saturday, 03/30/19. City services impacted so far is limited to its ability to offer birth, death and marriage certificates. People seeking these services are having to visit state vital records offices.
Albany police are said to have no access to any service or program that relies on internet connection.
The situation is still being assessed and inquiries to the Mayor's office on Monday were not being responded to.
Ransomware attacks on cities have been increasing due to lax security and that the attack is more likely to be successful. Citizens depend on city government services thus city official feel more pressure to resolve the situation.
Gregory McGee, the Police union's vice president, said that the ransomware was also affecting computers in patrol cars related to "incident and accident reports." "One has to ask the question of why a police department with sensitive information is on the same network that was so easily attacked."
In March of 2018, Atlanta, GA was targeted. City officials refused to pay and recently the ongoing recovery process has been estimated to cost $17 million.
Two Iranian hackers have been charged by the Justice Department with using malware to attack targets with critical infrastructure or that offer critical services. Hospitals have been targetted and in many cases, the victims could not pay but the alleged hackers have still taken in $6 million. The Iranians remain at large since there is no extradition treaty with Iran.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-york-albany-capital-hit-by-ransomware-attack/
https://www.cnet.com/news/new-york-capital-hit-by-ransomware-attack-taking-services-offline/
Office 365, OneDrive and SharePoint folders. Are you safe from Ransomware?
Many companies today have Office 365 and use OneDrive and Sharepoint to synchronize their onsite server and Cloud services. This is a backup in the traditional sense. However, ransomware encrypts the files on your system, rendering them unusable. They cannot be opened or viewed without the key to decrypt them. Hence the term ransomware because the attacker generally will request a payment be made in cryptocurrency to obtain the key.
If your server or computer is attacked by ransomware and it syncs with your cloud then it will overwrite the files in the cloud. Fortunately, OneDrive has a feature called versioning. Up to 50 previous versions of any Microsoft Office file exists and you can revert to the good version that was overwritten.
Unfortunately, this works only for MS Office files. Ransomware will encrypt jpegs, PDFs and all files located on a computer. So all non-related Microsoft Office files are subject to be lost. It will also be time-consuming and troublesome to have to reversion all your Office data.
It is therefore imperative that you keep multiple day backups of your data. You should keep multiple days in case the attack happens and goes undetected for a day or two. If you have only a single day backup, say the same backup occurs to the same external drive daily and you get attacked, you could end up with a backup of the encrypted data.
Redundant backups are a good insurance policy in the event of a Malware attack. Hardware failure is no longer the main threat to your data. Organizations and staff must protect against the constant threat of malware and ransomware in today's IT climate. A good backup plan is essential to safeguard your data.
Start examining your backup and security needs today before it's too late.
Support for Windows 7 ending 01/14/2020.
If you are still using XP based systems then there has not been any security patches or updates to your computer since 04/08/2014. Experts agree that you should not use Windows XP based computers to access information and email on the internet. There aren't any modern browsers or AV software for these computers available any longer and the risks to your data and personal info is exponential.
In approximately 8 months support for Windows 7 ends.
Plan today to upgrade your systems to a new DForce Intel based computer with the newest Generation 8 and 9 Intel processors running Windows 10.
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