Tag Archive for: Small

A small Canadian town is being extorted by a global ransomware gang

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The Canadian town of St. Marys, Ontario, has been hit by a ransomware attack that has locked staff out of internal systems and encrypted data.

The small town of around 7,500 residents seems to be the latest target of the notorious LockBit ransomware group. On July 22nd, a post on LockBit’s dark web site listed townofstmarys.com as a victim of the ransomware and previewed files that had been stolen and encrypted.

Screenshot taken from a ransomware group’s website. Text reads: “The Town of St. Marys is located at the junction of the Thames River and Trout Creek, southwest of Stratford in southwestern Ontario. Rich in natural resources, namely the Thames River, the land that now makes up St. Marys was traditionally used as hunting grounds by First Nations peoples. European settlers arrived in the early 1840s. Stolen data (67GB): financial documents, plans, department, confidential data”

LockBit ransom listing for the Town of St. Marys

In a phone call, St. Marys Mayor Al Strathdee told The Verge that the town was responding to the attack with the help of a team of experts.

“To be honest, we’re in somewhat of a state of shock,” Strathdee said. “It’s not a good feeling to be targeted, but the experts we’ve hired have identified what the threat is and are walking us through how to respond. Police are interested and have dedicated resources to the case … there are people here working on it 24/7.”

Strathdee said that after systems were locked, the town had received a ransom demand from the LockBit ransomware gang but had not paid anything to date. In general, the Canadian government’s cybersecurity guidance discouraged the paying of ransoms, Strathdee said, but the town would follow the incident team’s advice on how to engage further.

Screenshots shared on the LockBit site show the file structure of a Windows operating system, containing directories corresponding to municipal operations like finance, health and safety, sewage treatment, property files, and public works. Per LockBit’s standard operating methods, the town was given a deadline by which to pay to have their systems unlocked or else see the data published online.

Brett O’Reilly, communications manager for the town of St. Marys, directed The Verge to a press statement issued by St. Marys in which the town gave further details. Per the statement, essential municipal services like transit and water systems have been unaffected by the incident, and the town is attempting to unlock IT systems and restore backup data.

According to an analysis by Recorded…

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Fact or Fiction? The Truth About Cybersecurity for Small and Mid-Sized Businesses

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There are many common perceptions about cybersecurity – but many are misperceptions. For small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), misinformation about cybersecurity can be confusing – and sometimes risky. It’s time to set the record straight on which statements are fact and which are fiction.

Fiction: Cyber criminals don’t care about SMBs

Cybersecurity Live - Boston

Modern cyber criminals actually DO care about SMBs – and often use smaller third-party vendors to gain access to larger targets. With fewer budget dollars and expert resources dedicated to cybersecurity than their larger counterparts, small and mid-sized organizations often make easier targets, particularly in today’s increasingly complex and connected cloud environment. In fact, nearly one-third (28%) of data breaches in 2020 involved small businesses, according to the Verizon 2020 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) – 70% of which were perpetrated by external actors.

Fiction: Outsourcing cybersecurity is not a realistic option for SMBs

Outsourcing cybersecurity is a great option for SMBs. Leveraging a managed service rather than buying a security point solution gives your SMB fixed-cost access to enterprise-grade technology and expertise you might otherwise not be able to afford. These seasoned security teams become an extension of your internal IT team, and can help with creating and enhancing your overall cybersecurity program and boosting your security posture.

Fact: Compliant doesn’t mean secure 

While it’s true that cybersecurity and compliance are often intertwined, they are not the same. An organization may meet minimum government or industry security requirements, but that doesn’t mean the organization is secure. Your IT/security team should be aware of the compliance mandates in your industry, but also be ready to play an active role in protecting your organization. Rather than trying to take on these responsibilities alone, a cybersecurity-as-a-service provider with demonstrated industry expertise can help you meet your compliance obligations – and will have the technology and expertise to keep you secure as well.

Fact: Cybersecurity fatigue is a problem 

Forty-one percent of respondents at both SMBs…

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Ransomware the final nail in coffin for small US university • The Register

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A December attack against a long-standing college in Illinois has pushed the institution to permanently close. 

After 157 years, Lincoln College, the rural university with an average of 1100 students, is shutting its doors following years of rapid decline triggered by COVID-19 and compounded by the ransomware attack.

The ransomware assault that hit in December 2021 originated in Iran, college president David Gerlach told the Chicago Tribune. According to Lincoln’s closure letter, the attack hindered access to all institutional data, interrupted admissions and took retention, fundraising and recruitment systems offline.

The College said that no personal identifying information was exposed.

Gerlach told the Tribune that it cost Lincoln an unspecified amount less than $100,000 to restore the systems. “Once fully restored in March 2022, the projections displayed significant enrollment shortfalls, requiring a transformational donation or partnership to sustain Lincoln College beyond the current semester,” the College said.

Attempts to raise funds, sell assets, consolidate jobs and other money-making schemes failed to materialize the $50 million Gerlach said the university would have needed to keep going.

Now, after surviving “the economic crisis of 1887, a major campus fire in 1912, the Spanish flu of 1918, the Great Depression, World War II, the 2008 global financial crisis, and more,” it’s lights out, lost jobs and students left to hunt for new schools.

Lincoln’s shutdown: Avoidable?

Lincoln College has been light with specifics about the attack, which raises a big question: Was the university doing all it could to secure its systems and users? 

“The economic burdens initiated by the pandemic required large investments in technology and campus safety measures, as well as a significant drop in enrollment with students choosing to postpone college or take a leave of absence,” the university stated in the…

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Three Steps To Make Your Small Business Harder To Hack

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Doug Howard is CEO of Pondurance.

The U.S. Small Business Administration recently launched a new pilot program to help small businesses improve their cybersecurity infrastructure. As business owners everywhere face increasing cyber risks and challenges that could cripple their operations, the SBA has committed to awarding millions in grants to help entrepreneurs defend against cyberthreats.

The program should also serve as a wake-up call for small-business operators across the country, many of whom think they are simply not big enough or visible enough to be victimized by cybercriminals. This is not true. Small businesses are just as likely to be targeted by cybercriminals as large enterprises.

Of course, a lot of small-business owners do understand the threat they’re up against. But many of them don’t know where to begin when it comes to building an effective and practical cybersecurity program. If that describes you, here are three easy steps your company can take to better defend your business.

1. Prioritize your risk areas.

No organization in the world has enough money or expertise to eliminate every single cyberthreat. That’s why it’s so important, especially for small businesses, to prioritize risk areas. For example, is there a risk to human life if your business is attacked? For most small businesses, the answer is no. But if you run a small healthcare company such as a hospital, you might have internet-connected health-monitoring devices that, if tampered with, could cause direct harm to your patients. If this is the case, then those systems must be prioritized. You must protect the health and safety of your patients first and foremost.

Another priority risk, which is shared by all small businesses, is revenue risk. If cybercriminals attack your e-commerce site or your point-of-sale systems, for instance, that can devastate your business. So it’s important to focus on protecting those assets before almost anything else.

Other high-priority risks include reputational risk and regulatory risk. If you experience a breach, are you capable of taking all the necessary steps required by state and federal regulatory rules? If you…

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