Security News for the Week Ending May 15, 2020

Pitney Bowes Hit By Ransomware for 2nd Time in 7 Months

Pitney Bowes has verified that it has been hit by a ransomware attack for the second time in 7 months. This time it is the maze ransomware, which steals data before encrypting your systems. Sometimes ransomware hackers leave their hooks in a victim’s system so they can come back later and cause more pain. Again I ask – are you ready? Credit: Computer Weekly

U.S. To Accuse China of Trying To Steal Vaccine Data

The U.S. says – no surprise – that other countries such as China, Vietnam and even South Korea are trying to steal vaccine research, treatments and testing. Other than warning businesses that other countries are trying to steal our stuff, it is not clear what the government can or plans to do. Credit: MSN

Security May Be Victim to Business Downturn

If fairness, all costs have to be justified during a business downturn and security costs are one of those costs.

As companies layoff employees and downsize, security teams are at risk because they don’t tie directly to revenue.

But all you need to do is as a company that had even a small breach and spent, say, $1 million on it, whether saving the salary of that dedicated security team member made sense in hindsight.

The bad news is that the hackers understand this and they will watch for companies that are not paying attention.

Of course, that does not mean that every company is spending every security dollar wisely. Probably not. Credit: WSJ

Ransomware is Getting to be Like Commercial Software with Feature Releases

Something tells me that this is not a good thing, but ransomware software is big business. As a result developers are enhancing their software with new releases. The Sodinokibi (REvil) software has added a new feature that allows it to encrypt files, even if they are open and locked by another process. The ransomware kills the process or processes that are locking the file and then encrypt it, after stealing a copy first. Adding features seems to work for companies like Google and Microsoft…. Credit: Bleeping Computer

FBI Reportedly Asks Apple for Contents of Senator Burr’s iPhone

Senator Burr, is being investigated for selling stocks after he was briefed on the Coronavirus as the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The FBI asked for his phone, which his attorney gave them. Apparently the FBI was able to get a warrant after they asked Apple for the contents of Burr’s iCloud account. Apple seems to be willing to give the cops your iCloud data, which they can decrypt, if the cops remember to ask in time. It has been reported that in late January and early February, Burr and his wife sold between $600,000 and $1.7 million worth of stock. The market started it’s nosedive around February 20th. Credit: CNet

by