PC Matic Blog

Malware, ransomware and viruses infecting schools K-12.

Broward County Florida School District Hit With Outrageous Ransomware Demands

Mary James / April 1, 2021

Broward County school ransomware attack. Broward County Public Schools was hit with possibly the largest ransom demand to date on a school system. The hackers demanded a $40 million payday to not release student and teacher information. District officials said they are confident they caught the breach in time. They say no information was accessed. […]

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Ransomware Costs: Ransomware Payouts Jumped More Than 300% in 2020

Mary James / March 10, 2021

Money, Money, Money Ransomware Costs! Ransomware is profitable, but just how profitable is it? Initial reports for 2020 are in and the payday was huge. BankInfoSecurity.com reported that there was about “370 million in known 2020 ransomware profits. Via ransoms that got paid – which represents a 336% increase over known 2019 earnings…” These numbers are

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New Year, New Ransomware

Mary James / January 23, 2021

Babuk Locker Emerges in 2021 In less than a week, 2021 introduced a new type of Enterprise ransomware. Babuk Locker is now less than a month old and has amassed a small collection of victims. So far ransoms have been demanded in bitcoin and are under $100,000, to what I could find. If you aren’t

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Knoxville Pays For Hack But Not The Hackers

Mary James / January 14, 2021

A Costly Repair Wednesday morning, the city of Knoxville, TN released invoices showing $217,000 paid for a ransomware attack. The city was hit in June of 2020, and the hackers asked for 42.5 Bitcoin. At the time, that was worth nearly $400,00 (as of publishing that would now be worth about $1.6 million). The city

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Ransomware continues to accelerate, but who is at fault?

Cognizant Ransomware Attack

Mary James / June 23, 2020

Personal Information Exposed IT provider Cognizant informed its employees about a Maze ransomware attack on May 1st. Personal information, including names and company credit card numbers, were part of the compromised data. However, some employees were also exposed to additional data exposure. “The small number of associates who have had other kinds of personal information

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Honda Hacked

Mary James / June 9, 2020

Photo by Will Hough on Unsplash Honda’s Global Operations Haulted Automobile giant Honda confirmed today that they’ve been the victim of a cyberattack. The company released a statement Tuesday on the affected production issues outside of their Japan headquarters. “Work is being undertaken to minimize the impact and to restore full functionality of production, sales, and development activities,”

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Michigan State University Hacked

Mary James / May 28, 2020

Ransomware Attack Has A Deadline Michigan State University is counting down a clock, but not for a buzzer to signal another athletic victory. Today the gang responsible for Netwalker ransomware announced they’ve given MSU administrators a week. MSU was hacked. The administration can pay the undisclosed ransom or risk having sensitive data released. Michigan State,

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Hackers, Branded As Terrorists, Release Trump Emails

Mary James / May 20, 2020

The FBI Refuses A group of hackers known as REvil or Sodinokibi have released their first round of emails they claim are “damaging” to Trump’s reelection campaign, as reported by Forbes. The group successfully stole information from a New York lawfirm and are now claiming they have “dirty laundry” on Trump. After publishing documents on

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Magellan Health Attack Due To Phishing

Mary James / May 13, 2020

Posing As A Customer To Hack The System Magellan Health, based in Arizona, reported an infiltration of their systems they discovered on April 11th. The hack happened 5 days earlier when a socially engineered phishing attempt impersonated a Magellan client. Magellan is using a third party cybersecurity forensics firm to assist in the investigation. The

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Medical Field Continues To Face Attacks During COVID-19 Pandemic

Mary James / April 28, 2020

The Evolution of Ransomware Ransomware began as a way to extort money from people. Therefore, by encrypting files, the criminals could demand whatever price they wanted. In response, we evolved our security plans. We now include back-ups and reboot options. This left many attackers in a tough spot. They no longer had the leverage to

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