Tag Archive for: san

‘Cybersecurity incident’ hits San Diego Unified computer network

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The offices of San Diego Unified School District have experienced a computer-network security breach, SDUSD officials disclosed this week.

District Superintendent Lamont Jackson on Thursday sent a letter to his staff and families of students attending SDUSD campuses to apprise them of what he described as a “cybersecurity incident.”

“After learning of this incident, we acted swiftly to take steps to secure our network, to launch an investigation and to prevent any disruptions to (information technology) operations,” Jackson wrote. “We also notified law enforcement and engaged cybersecurity professionals to assist.”

Though SDUSD officials did not reveal if the breach may have resulted in the misappropriation of any sensitive data or involved any ransom demands, Jackson stated that all the district’s “critical systems continue to be operational, and the incident has not impacted the safety and emergency mechanisms in place at schools and offices.”

“Out of an abundance of caution, we have changed all passwords for staff, and we will continue the process to change passwords for student accounts as a measure to continue strengthening our IT system,” the superintendent asserted. “In the coming days, our school staff will work on providing new passwords for students on a schedule prepared by the district.”

SDUSD officials “will provide an additional update once our investigation is complete,” Jackson wrote.

“We want our students and the San Diego Unified community to know that we place a high value on maintaining the integrity and security of the data we hold in our systems and (that) we are working diligently to complete our investigation of the incident,” he stated.

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Security guard shot dead in San Fernando

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Police are investigating after a security guard was found shot to death in San Fernando.

Police identified the deceased as Thquan Ricket.

According to police reports around 1.30 am this morning, police received a report of a shooting in progress along the SS Erin Road, in the vicinity of Sawh’s Medical Associates.

When officers arrived, they observed the body of a man lying on the roadway in a pool of blood.

He appeared to have been shot multiple times.

More on this as it becomes available

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San Francisco 49ers confirm ransomware attack

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The San Francisco 49ers NFL team has fallen victim to a ransomware attack that encrypted files on its corporate IT network, a spokesperson for the team has told The Record.

The team confirmed the attack earlier today after the operators of the BlackByte ransomware listed the team as one of their victims on Saturday on a dark web “leak site” the group typically uses to shame victims and force them into paying their extortion demands.

BlackByte-ransomware
Image: Screenshot of the BlackByte 49ers extortion page (via @CyberKnow20)

“Upon learning of the incident, we immediately initiated an investigation and took steps to contain the incident,” the team told us earlier today.

“While the investigation is ongoing, we believe the incident is limited to our corporate IT network; to date, we have no indication that this incident involves systems outside of our corporate network, such as those connected to Levi’s Stadium operations or ticket holders,” it added.

The team said it notified law enforcement and is working with third-party cybersecurity firms to investigate the attack.

“[W]e are working diligently to restore involved systems as quickly and as safely as possible,” the team said.

Attack could have been catastrophic in “what if?” scenario

The attack could have been catastrophic if the team had qualified for Super Bowl LVI, which will take place later today.

The 49ers dramatically lost 17 to 20 after the Los Angeles Rams mounted a 4th quarter comeback in the NFC Championship game two weeks ago.

If they had made it to the Super Bowl, this ransomware attack could have seriously disrupted the team’s game preparations, bringing ransomware to the forefront of the US media cycle once again after several high-profile incidents last year, including one that took place over the 4th of July weekend.

Nonetheless, it is unclear how the current attack will impact the team’s plan for the next NFL season/year, which will start later this month with the free agency signing period, NFL Combine event, and subsequent NFL Draft.

FBI warns about BlackByte attacks

As for the attackers, the BlackByte ransomware gang is one of the smaller ransomware operations active today, operating on a RaaS…

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‘The Internet’s On Fire;’ Software Vulnerability May Enable Worldwide Hack Attacks – CBS San Francisco

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BOSTON (AP) — A critical vulnerability in a widely used software tool — one quickly exploited in the online game Minecraft — is rapidly emerging as a major threat to organizations around the world.

“The internet’s on fire right now,” said Adam Meyers, senior vice president of intelligence at the cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike. “People are scrambling to patch,” he said, “and all kinds of people scrambling to exploit it.” He said Friday morning that in the 12 hours since the bug’s existence was disclosed that it had been “fully weaponized,” meaning malefactors had developed and distributed tools to exploit it.

The flaw may be the worst computer vulnerability discovered in years. It was uncovered in a utility that’s ubiquitous in cloud servers and enterprise software used across industry and government. Unless it is fixed, it grants criminals, spies and programming novices alike easy access to internal networks where they can loot valuable data, plant malware, erase crucial information and much more.

“I’d be hard-pressed to think of a company that’s not at risk,” said Joe Sullivan, chief security officer for Cloudflare, whose online infrastructure protects websites from malicious actors. Untold millions of servers have it installed, and experts said the fallout would not be known for several days.

Amit Yoran, CEO of the cybersecurity firm Tenable, called it “the single biggest, most critical vulnerability of the last decade” — and possibly the biggest in the history of modern computing.

The vulnerability, dubbed “Log4Shell,” was rated 10 on a scale of one to 10 the Apache Software Foundation, which oversees development of the software. Anyone with the exploit can obtain full access to an unpatched computer that uses the software,

Experts said the extreme ease with which the vulnerability lets an attacker access a web server — no password required — is what makes it so dangerous.

New Zealand’s computer emergency response team was among the first to report that the flaw was being “actively exploited in the wild” just hours after it was publicly reported Thursday and a patch released.

The vulnerability, located in open-source…

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