Category Archives: ireland

Inside Ireland’s Public Healthcare Ransomware Scare

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The accounting firm PricewatersCoopers recently published lessons learned from the disruptive and costly ransomware attack in May 2021 on Ireland’s public health system. The unusually candid post-mortem found that nearly two months elapsed between the initial intrusion and the launching of the ransomware. It also found affected hospitals had tens of thousand of outdated Windows 7 systems, and that the health system’s IT administrators failed to respond to multiple warning signs that a massive attack was imminent. Continue reading Inside Ireland’s Public Healthcare Ransomware Scare→

Months-long Interpol crackdown nets more than 1,000 online fraud arrests

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An Interpol operation to combat online fraud concluded with the arrests of 1,003 people and the interception of $27 million in illicit funds, according to the international police organization, which conducted the crackdown alongside 20 countries. Waged from June to September of this year, “Operation HAECHI-II” targeted online crime like romance scams, investment fraud and money laundering associated with illegal online gambling. But it also turned up a business email compromise scheme in Colombia and led to alerts about malware tied to the popular Netflix show “Squid Game.” Interpol said the crackdown demonstrated how cybercrime has risen to new levels since the outbreak of the coronavirus. It’s the latest international warning about how the pandemic has fueled a crime wave, even setting aside attacks targeting the health care sector or exploiting COVID-19 that have flourished over the past two years. “The results of Operation HAECHI-II show that the surge in […]

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White House kicks off international ransomware meeting amid global barrage

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A parade of nations recounted grim experiences with ransomware at the start of a two-day White House-led summit on Wednesday, where the gathered officials will collaborate on how to counter the rise of digital extortion. Israel was, at the moment, dealing with an ongoing ransomware attack at a major hospital, Hillel Yaffe Medical Center. Ireland and the Czech Republic have experienced similar attacks on their medical centers. South Korea has seen a 70% year-over-year increase in ransomware incidents, and the United Arab Emirates has seen a 200% rise. Each anecdote, each statistic fed into the White House message for the day that ransomware is a global issue that will require collective action. Scheduled sessions will cover resilience, illicit finance, disrupting criminals and diplomacy, each led by officials from a different country. “No one country, no one group can solve this problem,” said U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. “Transnational criminals […]

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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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Sendoso nabs $100M as its corporate gifting platform passes 20,000 customers

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Corporate gift services have come into their own during the Covid-19 pandemic by standing in as a proxy for other kinds of relationship building activities — office meetings, lunches, and hosting at events — that have traditionally been part and parcel of how people do business, but were no longer feasible during lockdowns, social distancing […] Continue reading Sendoso nabs $100M as its corporate gifting platform passes 20,000 customers→

European police round up 23 suspected scammers accused of $1.2 million fraud

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An international police sting netted 23 arrests in three countries of suspects behind a business email compromise scheme that last year turned to capitalizing on COVID-19 fears, Europol announced on Wednesday. Together, the fraudsters are believed to have stolen at least $1.2 million from companies in 20 countries, mainly European and Asian nations, the European Union police agency said. The scheme relied on use of compromised email accounts for advance-payment fraud, Europol said. The suspects created fake emails and websites that resembled those of legitimate companies to trick victims into placing orders with them. They then laundered financial data through Romanian bank accounts to ultimately withdraw money from ATMs. “The fraud was run by an organised crime group which prior to the COVID-19 pandemic already illegally offered other fictitious products for sale online, such as wooden pellets,” Europol’s announcement said. “Last year the criminals changed their modus operandi and started […]

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Irish hospital sued by cancer patient after ransomware attack

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A cancer patient is taking legal proceedings against Mercy University Hospital in Cork, Ireland.

Not because of negligent treatment, but because some of his personal medical files were published on the dark web after the hospital suffered a ransomwa… Continue reading Irish hospital sued by cancer patient after ransomware attack→

Irish officials analyze decryption tool as long recovery process from ransomware continues

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The Irish government expects to dedicate significant resources in the coming days to recovery efforts related to a ransomware incident that has hampered the country’s public health service for the last week, officials said Friday. Irish officials have obtained a decryption key that could unlock the data on the networks of the Health Service Executive (HSE), Ireland’s $25 billion public health system, though the key will need to be tested to ensure it does more harm than good. Meanwhile, medical appointments have dropped by as much as 80% in parts of the country following the breach, health officials have said. It’s an example of the pressure that governments face, often under the international spotlight, to promptly restore connectivity to critical systems held hostage by cash-rich cybercriminals. Emergency care has continued throughout the ordeal, but there have been delays in non-urgent services in parts of Ireland as IT systems supporting maternity […]

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Irish officials warn of ongoing disruptions to health system, long recovery following ransomware incident

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Irish officials say it will take “many weeks” to fully restore the IT infrastructure of the country’s $25 billion public health system following a ransomware attack last week. While emergency departments continue to operate normally, Ireland’s Health Service Executive (HSE), as the public health  system is known, said Wednesday that patients seeking non-urgent care should expect long delays. “Work continues today in assessing the impact and beginning to restore HSE IT systems,” the statement said. “This work will take many weeks and we anticipate major disruption will continue due to the shutdown of our IT systems. We should start to see some early signs of recovery in some sites over the coming days.” The incident, which Irish officials have blamed on a popular strain of ransomware called Conti, has rocked the Irish public health system. One maternity hospital in Dublin told pregnant women not to come to the hospital unless they […]

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The Week in Breach News: 05/12/21 – 05/18/21

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It’s the all ransomware edition featuring huge breaches at Toshiba & the VA plus a special report on the state of phishing security in 2021.
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