Also this summer incidents were reported in general news media involving cyber- and ransomware-attacks on healthcare organizations. Cyber-attacks on healthcare organizations are not uncommon. According to CSO-online “the healthcare experiences twice the number of cyber-attacks as other Industries”. We therefore ask why healthcare systems are under attack so often?
Tag: Malware in the media
Malware in the media – Same old song with a different meaning?
No, we are not going to talk about the classic Motown song out of the sixties performed by the Four Tops. This month’s blog is about Mark Zuckerberg’s promise, GDPR, Facebook’s new data leak and politicians putting their money where their mouth is. The question is, will that money be put on privacy or security?
Malware in the media – Once bitten twice shy or double dumb?
The historic summit between North and South Korea is of course the most important security related news in April 2018. This promising security news was countered by tragic-comical IT-related security news. It is not about the privacy (Facebook) or security (Google Play) hassles of social media, but about a big city hit twice by malware.
Malware in the media – IoT-devices a new playing field for botnets
Dutch government and financial infrastructure is under heavy DDoS attacks (Reuters, SecurityWeek). These attacks occurred a week after Dutch media disclosed that Dutch counter-intelligence warned US homeland on the democratic party email hacks. On social media and the internet people soon connected the two events and a conspiracy story was born.
Malware in the media – Smart devices with stupid security
With Thanksgiving, a lot of smart products have found their way from vendor to consumer. Most people buying smart products do understand that these products are ‘connected’. Most buyers assume those smart products are tested and safe to use. But there is a huge problem with smart technology: the technology is evolving faster than the legislation protecting people using those smart devices. There is no legislation to force vendors to test and certify that their smart devices are really safe to use.
Malware in the media: Bad Rabbit ransomware and Wifi-Krack vulnerability
At AV-Comparatives we follow around 50 security related news sources for the selection of the malware of the month. Often the blog post headers of the news feeds show a variety of security issues and news items addressed. To Determine which malware(s) got substantial media attention normally requires further reading of the blog posts. This month it was an easy choice. Bad Rabbit and the Wifi-Krack dominated the media.
Malware in the media: anti-malware tests are our legacy and future
The DerbyCon security conference reminded us of an important AV-Comparatives advantage. In his keynote speech John Strand stated that “researchers are terrified that they are going to get sued”. At AV-Comparatives we have some experience with security firms threatening to go to court to prevent publish our (independent) test report. One vendor for example tried to prevent us publishing our Next Gen endpoint protection test results by publicly announcing to sue one of our partners.
Malware in the media – Augusts’ eclipse and Android 8
On August the 21st people in the USA could witness a total solar eclipse. People from Oregon to South Carolina could see the moon totally covering the sun. A total eclipse is a unique event. The last total eclipse of the sun happened 38 years ago and the next one will be in 2024. Google smartly used this event to introduce the next Android OS version. Version 8 is named Oreo, a popular chocolate cookie filled with butter milk cream.
Malware in the media – July’s “ignorance is bliss”
The Internet of Things (IoT) promises to make life easy, but Panda calls it “the next cyber security nightmare” and CSO ranked “the Internet of malicious things” as the number one threat for 2017. Shortly after the NotPetya ransom-worm, the first ever WIFI-worm was unveiled: broadpwn!
On July the 27th Nitay Artenstein demonstrated the first successful WIFI-worm attack at the Blackhat USA 2017 event. Broadpwn used a vulnerability of the Broadcom WIFI chipset which could potentially impact over one billion smartphones. Luckily both Google and Apple released a patch before public disclosure (ignorance is bliss).
Malware in the media – June’s “fire in the hole”
Fire in the hole is a warning that an explosion is about to occur. In old days coal miners used to yell this three times before igniting dynamite. In those days dynamite was used to break rock and dig tunnels to excavate coal. The military adopted this expression to warn of an impending explosion.