Category Archives: Financial

NSA, DHS shine light on BlackMatter ransomware threat to food industry, demands of up to $15 million

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A government advisory published Monday warned that BlackMatter ransomware attackers are going after U.S. critical infrastructure, including food and agriculture organizations, and demanding exorbitant payouts. It’s the latest joint alert from the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the FBI and the National Security Agency, this time about a form of ransomware that first emerged in July. It comes just days after a similar alert about ransomware threats to water and wastewater facilities. It’s also part of a recent push by federal security agencies to put a focus on the food and agriculture sector. “This advisory highlights the evolving and persistent nature of criminal cyber actors and the need for a collective public and private approach to reduce the impact and prevalence of ransomware attacks,” said Eric Goldstein, executive assistant director for cybersecurity at CISA. BlackMatter seeks between $80,000 and $15 million in cryptocurrency, including bitcoin and Monero, […]

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Accenture lost ‘proprietary information’ in summer ransomware attack

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Accenture has acknowledged in a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission that outsiders extracted “proprietary information” in a cyber incident this summer. The SEC filing filed Friday provides additional detail on a breach the company first discovered on July 30 and disclosed in early August. The disclosure coincided with the ransomware gang LockBit 2.0 leaking information from the consulting giant after saying Accenture failed to pay a $50 million ransom by its deadline. CyberScoop had previously reported other details of the intrusion. “While the perpetrators were able to acquire certain documents that reference a small number of clients and certain work materials we had prepared for clients, none of the information is of a highly sensitive nature,” read an internal memo that CyberScoop obtained. A spokesperson didn’t directly answer a question about what kind of “proprietary information” the attackers stole, saying that the company’s original statement covered the matter. […]

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2021 ransomware transactions have already exceed 2020 numbers, Treasury Department says

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As of June, financial institutions have already reported 635 suspicious ransomware-related activities to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, according to a report out Friday from the Treasury Department — a 30% increase from all reported activity in 2020. The report also found that the cost of ransomware payments is climbing. The total value of the 2021 reports was $590 million — or a $66.4 million monthly average — compared to $416 million for all of 2020. The analysis, which is the first issued under the updated FinCEN threat trend reporting requirements enacted into law earlier this year, underscores both concerns with the growing cost of ransomware as well as the role of virtual currencies in how criminals extort and launder funds. The Treasury Department last month announced its first sanctions against a cryptocurrency exchange for facilitating transactions involving money gained from ransomware. The report, as well as guidance issued Friday […]

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US, allies pledge to combat money laundering as part of efforts to slow ransomware

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Nations must better clamp down on money laundering in order to disrupt ransomware gangs’ illicit financial transactions, according to a statement Thursday from 32 countries that participated in two days of White House meetings focused on slowing hackers and digital extortion. The joint statement also included commitments to other methods of countering ransomware, such as encouraging cyber hygiene practices to the private sector, collaborating across law enforcement and national security agencies and using diplomatic pressure against nations that harbor cybercriminals. The initiative comes after a White House summit that included presentations and intelligence sharing between countries including Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France and Germany, among others. The two days of meetings were the latest steps the Biden administration has taken to battle ransomware, a frequent focus of the White House since major attacks this summer on Colonial Pipeline, JBS and Kaseya. However, the meetings excluded Russia, […]

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White House set to lead 30 nations in ransomware discussions, sans Russia

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The White House on Wednesday and Thursday will convene meetings with representatives from more than 30 countries to discuss how to counter ransomware, leaving out the country the president most frequently criticizes for hosting gangs of hackers: Russia. “Participants will cover everything from efforts to improve national resilience, to experiences addressing the misuse of virtual currency to launder ransom payments, our respective efforts to disrupt and prosecute ransomware criminals and diplomacy as a tool to counter ransomware,” a senior administration official told reporters on Tuesday. The official didn’t specify why Russia didn’t get an invitation beyond unnamed “constraints.” The lack of an invitation this time “doesn’t preclude future opportunities for them to participate.” The U.S. also has other avenues for discussing ransomware with the Kremlin, the official said. The lack of an invitation for Russia exemplifies the tensions over when the U.S. might involve more adversarial nations in discussions over […]

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Former TD Bank, Bank of America employee allegedly helped email scammers launder money

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An accused money launderer allegedly used his position as an employee at Bank of America and TD Bank to aid an email fraud scheme that scammed five businesses out of more than $1 million. The U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday that a grand jury had returned an indictment against three men — Onyewuchi Ibeh, Jason Joyner and Mouaaz Elkhebri — charging them with money laundering and aggravated identity theft. The defendants allegedly operated a business email compromise scheme, in which thieves pose as a business or associate in an email then ask a victim to wire up to hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time. Elkhebri, a 30-year-old resident of Alexandria, Va., used inside access at Bank of America (where he worked as a personal banker and relationship manager from 2015 through 2017) and then TD Bank (where he worked from 2017 through 2018) to open multiple accounts […]

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Cybercrime is hitting communities of color at higher rates, study finds

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Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color (BIPOC) are more likely to suffer from identity theft and financial impact from the fallout, according to survey data collected by internet security company Malwarebytes with the nonprofits Digitunity and the Cybercrime Support Network. The survey found, for instance, that just 47% of BIPOC respondents were able to avoid a financial impact due to identity theft, compared to 59% of overall respondents. Compared to overall respondents, BIPOC on average reported roughly $200 more in financial losses. “Forty-seven percent sounds like okay, well, that’s not so bad — it’s like 50-50 whether you’re losing money, right? But 47% is compared to 59% of all respondents,” said David Ruiz, an online privacy advocate at Malwarebytes. “That means that everyone else has a better chance at not being financially hit, everyone else has a better chance of skirting by kind of unscathed.” Ruiz says the […]

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CISA, FBI, NSA warn of increased attacks involving Conti ransomware

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The Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency, the FBI and National Security Agency urged organizations in an alert Wednesday to update their systems amid an increase in Conti ransomware attacks. DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI reported over 400 attacks using Conti ransomware against mostly U.S. targets. The group primarily runs “double extortion” campaigns in which hackers encrypt and steal files. In the scheme, they demand a ransom from the victim in order to restore access to the systems; if the victim doesn’t pay, the actors threaten to leak the stolen data. At least 16 of the 400 reported attacks targeted U.S. health care providers and first responder networks, the FBI reported in May. The Conti ransomware gang has already been linked to several major attacks this year. In June the gang stole roughly 18,000 files from the Tulsa police, leaking some after the city refused to […]

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Key lawmakers to CISA: Let us send you more money, power

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The Department of Homeland Security’s cyber division, a key government agency charged with helping stop and respond to cyberattacks, might be getting ready for a bigger role in the spotlight.  One key House committee advanced legislation in July to give the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency an extra $400 million. Then, another committee on Sept. 14 separately advanced its take on legislation that would provide an additional nearly $800 million to the agency, which has a $2 billion total budget in the current fiscal year. Those proposed funds come on top of another extra $650 million that Congress and President Joe Biden already provided to CISA in March through the American Rescue Plan focused on COVID-19 relief. And the recent moves on Capitol Hill to bolster CISA, an agency formally established only three years ago, aren’t limited to cash. Both chambers of Congress are contemplating legislation that would make CISA the […]

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Key lawmakers to CISA: Let us send you more money, power

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The Department of Homeland Security’s cyber division, a key government agency charged with helping stop and respond to cyberattacks, might be getting ready for a bigger role in the spotlight.  One key House committee advanced legislation in July to give the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency an extra $400 million. Then, another committee on Sept. 14 separately advanced its take on legislation that would provide an additional nearly $800 million to the agency, which has a $2 billion total budget in the current fiscal year. Those proposed funds come on top of another extra $650 million that Congress and President Joe Biden already provided to CISA in March through the American Rescue Plan focused on COVID-19 relief. And the recent moves on Capitol Hill to bolster CISA, an agency formally established only three years ago, aren’t limited to cash. Both chambers of Congress are contemplating legislation that would make CISA the […]

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