Cyber

​​​A guest post by Walter Contreras of Motiva​The biggest global ransomware attack yet continued to bite Monday as details emerged on how the Russia-linked gang responsible breached the company whose software was the conduit. In essence, the criminals used a tool that helps protect against malware to spread it widely.An affiliate of the notorious REvil gang, infected thousands of victims in at least 17 countries on Friday, largely through firms that remotely manage IT infrastructure for multiple customers, cybersecurity researchers said.REvil was demanding ransoms of up to $5 million. But late Sunday it offered in a posting on its dark web site a universal decryptor software…

​​A guest post by Walter Contreras of Motiva​​As the Department of Financial Services noted in the Cyber Insurance Risk Framework in February 2021, the cost of ransomware attacks has also shaken up the cyber insurance market.  Because of ransomware, loss ratios on cyber insurance increased from an average of 42% during 2015-2019 to 73% in 2020. Cybercriminals keep demanding larger sums – ransom demands increased 171% from 2019 to 2020 and continue to grow. A major insurer, CNA, recently paid a $40 million ransom.  These extortion payments have funded more frequent and more sophisticated ransomware attacks. Due to the rise of ransomware the Department of Financial Services has issued guidelines…

​A guest post by Walter Contreras of Motiva​Join us for a FREE webinar by Motiva on July 13th: 5 Cyber Security Protections EVERY Agency Needs NOW​​​As the number of spam and phishing emails continues to rise, it is increasingly more valuable for you and your staff to be trained how to recognize a scam when you see one.Do you know how to identify and handle email scams that want to infiltrate your business? Let us start with these tricks to recognize an email scamLook at the email headers: Some of the first pointers you’ll get are the email headers, i.e. the subject line, the sender name, and so…