Tag Archive for: Restore
Colonial Pipeline Paid DarkSide Hackers $5M to Restore Systems
(TNS) — Colonial Pipeline Co. paid nearly $5 million to Eastern European hackers on Friday, contradicting reports earlier this week that the company had no intention of paying an extortion fee to help restore the country’s largest fuel pipeline, according to two people familiar with the transaction.
The company paid the hefty ransom in difficult-to-trace cryptocurrency within hours after the attack, underscoring the immense pressure faced by the Georgia-based operator to get gasoline and jet fuel flowing again to major cities along the Eastern Seaboard, those people said. A third person familiar with the situation said U.S. government officials are aware that Colonial made the payment.
Once they received the payment, the hackers provided the operator with a decrypting tool to restore its disabled computer network. The tool was so slow that the company continued using its own backups to help restore the system, one of the people familiar with the company’s efforts said.
A representative from Colonial declined to comment, as did a spokesperson for the National Security Council. Colonial said it began to resume fuel shipments around 5 p.m. Eastern time Wednesday.
The hackers, which the FBI said are linked to a group called DarkSide, specialize in digital extortion and are believed to be located in Russia or Eastern Europe.
On Wednesday, media outlets including The Washington Post and Reuters, also based on anonymous sources, reported that the company had no immediate intention of paying the ransom.
Ransomware is a type of malware that locks up a victim’s files, which the attackers promise to unlock for a payment. More recently, some ransomware groups have also stolen victims’ data and threatened to release it unless paid — a kind of double extortion.
The FBI discourages organizations from paying ransom to hackers, saying there is no guarantee they will follow through on promises to unlock files. It also provides incentive to other would-be hackers, the agency says.
However, Anne Neuberger, the White House’s top cybersecurity official, pointedly declined to say whether companies should pay cyber ransoms at a…
NeuShield Introduces One-Click Restore for Windows Servers
FREMONT, Calif., Nov. 17, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — NeuShield, developers of the world’s first mirror shielding technology to instantly recover data and files when other malware defenses fail, today announced the award-winning NeuShield Data Sentinel now supports One-Click Restore on Windows Desktops and Servers. One-Click Restore brings operating system files and settings back to a known good state, allowing organizations to quickly regain access to servers and desktops after a ransomware attack. One-Click Restore also removes both known and unknown malware.
“We are excited to offer our next-generation version of One-Click Restore,” said Yuen Pin Yeap, CEO at NeuShield. “With this ground-breaking technology we can take a snapshot of any Windows Server or Desktop operating system (OS) daily and allow network administrators to revert back to any snapshot to remove ransomware and malware and undo any damage that may exist in the Server OS. This new technology improves performance dramatically and allows NeuShield to restore the Server OS, even when other technologies would otherwise fail.”
According to a report by cybersecurity firm Emsisoft, victims of the 11 largest ransomware attacks reported in the first half of 2020 accounted for $144.2 million in costs related to the attack. And the attacks show no sign of slowing down. According to the 2020 Verizon Data Breach Report, ransomware attacks continue to increase with the number of attacks doubling in the past year.
NeuShield Data Sentinel is unique because it provides another layer of protection beyond what competitive ransomware solutions offer. NeuShield’s anti-ransomware technology allows organizations to recover damaged data without a backup utilizing Mirror Shielding to protect files and ensure instant recovery of important data. This new approach allows customers to instantly recover from any unknown or zero-day threat because NeuShield protects the data, rather than try and find specific threats, without requiring continuous updates and without signatures.
“The availability of One-Click Restore for servers is a game-changer for me and my clients,” said David Macias, CEO at ITRMS, a…