ZATAZ » Vice-Society attacks universities
No less than fifty schools and universities have been taken hostage by the Vice-Society. What about student data?
” We have taken all measures » ” We called the experts » and so on. Messages attacked by cyber schools and universities Vice Society group I want to be sure. Trust, everything is under control. Check after the attack!
The documents leaked by this hacker, who specializes in corporate ransomware, include student data, passport scans, employee salaries and contract details.
The information was leaked after the affected schools refused to pay the ransom demands of the cybercriminals.
Vice Society has launched multiple ransomware campaigns targeting educational institutions in the UK, France and the US. It includes IUT Paris – Paris Cité (Fr); Xavier University (USA); Catholic University of Portugal; Austrian Institute of Science and Technology; Baysgarth School (Great Britain). ZATAZ referred to 52 of them!
Great Britain in sight!
UK-based schools and universities (16 incidents in 60 days) are seen as “soft targets” by cybercriminals due to a lack of investment in cyber security and the large number of devices connected to the systems. information at risk.
Since 2021, Vice-Society has signed more than 140 cyber attacks, including territorial ones. [Les villes de Rolle (Suisse), Witten et Shuhl (Allemagne), le Sénat Argentin, Est Ensemble – Grand Paris (Fr), la commune de Caldes de Montbui (Espagne), Ville de Palerme (Italie), Département d’Indre-et-Loire (Fr)]in energy [Filgo Québec), Etat de Cincinnati]health [Centre Hospitalier d’Arles (Fr), Centre Hospitalier de Castelluccio (Fr), United Health Centers (USA), Amaveca Salud (Espagne), Maternité Croizat].
As of January 1, 2023, Vice Society is the second most active group with 11 cyberattacks. To play and Lockbit (20), as well Royal and BlackByte (8). In one week, 43 malicious ransomware were detected ZATAZ Monitoring ServiceCyber intelligence group of ZATAZ.
The health sector is in focus
No industry was immune to hackers this year, but the healthcare sector topped the list in terms of cyber incidents.
Pharmacies, psychiatric facilities, and healthcare services are under constant attack by hacker groups in 2022. 30% of all major data breaches involve hospitals.
95% of all identity theft cases involve stolen medical records. This information is more valuable than the average credit card information. Health records last a lifetime.
25% increase in average data breach compared to 2021. According to several American studies, $10 million is the average total cost of a data breach in the healthcare sector in 2022. Healthcare losses were estimated between 2020 and 2022. 25 billion dollars.
The four most common causes of medical data leaks are: untrusted data; phishing; wrong cloud configuration and business email compromises (BEC).
During this time
Romanian antivirus company Bitdefender has released a free decryptor for files affected by ransomware attacks. MegaCortex.
The MegaCortex ransomware family (LockerGoga and MegaCortex) was noticed in 2019. Both of these malwares had almost the same goals. Experts noted an interesting fact: in the corporate networks where MegaCortex was found, they also found Emotet and Qbot.
By the way, MegaCortex operators used a double extortion tactic almost from the beginning: they not only encrypted the files, but also stole the internal data.
Typically, hackers would demand $20,000 to $5.8 million to decrypt documents. With the support of researchers from Europol and the NoMoreRansom project, Bitdefender experts were able to create a decryption.
It can be downloaded as an executable file (EXE) from the Romanian company’s server.
The decryptor has a “Full System Scan” mode. It allows users to search system-wide for corrupted files.
The manual recommends first backing up all affected files and then proceeding with decryption. “!!READ_ME!!!.TXT” and “!-!README!-!.RTF” should be used.
