Tag Archive for: work

What Is Ransomware, How It Work And Ways To Stay Safe

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Have you ever woken up to a message demanding money in exchange for access to your computer? This isn’t a scene from a dystopian movie; it’s the chilling reality of ransomware, a form of cyber extortion that has become a major threat in today’s digital world.

Ransomware has become a pervasive cyber threat, wreaking havoc on individuals and businesses alike. According to a 2023 report by Cybersecurity Ventures, global ransomware damages are projected to reach a staggering $265 billion by 2031!

These attacks not only cause financial losses but can also disrupt critical operations, damage reputations, and even pose legal and regulatory challenges. But what is ransomware? How exactly does it work? Who are its common targets? And most importantly, how can you defend yourself from becoming the next victim? In this article, we’ll discuss these things in detail.

What is Ransomware?

What is Ransomware

Ransomware is a malicious software program, or malware, specifically designed to hold a victim’s data or device hostage. Imagine a digital kidnapper – ransomware encrypts your crucial files, databases, or even locks you out of your entire system. The attacker then demands a ransom payment, typically in cryptocurrency, in exchange for the decryption key or regaining access.

Ransomware has become a significant threat in the digital age, causing billions of dollars in damages and disrupting businesses and individuals alike.

Types of Ransomware

There are two main types of ransomware, each employing a different tactic to extort victims:

  • Crypto-Ransomware (Encryptors): This is the most prevalent and well-known strain. Crypto-ransomware encrypts a victim’s valuable data, rendering it inaccessible. This could include essential documents, photos, financial records, or entire databases. The attacker then demands a ransom payment, typically in cryptocurrency, for the decryption key – the only way to unlock the files and regain access.
  • Locker Ransomware: This variant doesn’t encrypt files but rather locks the user out of their entire device or system. Imagine being blocked from your desktop screen, with a ransom note prominently displayed, demanding payment to regain control. While less sophisticated…

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AT&T says outage triggered by company work on network, not hack – Orange County Register

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By Jillian Deutsch, Todd Shields, Jake Bleiberg and Jennifer Jacobs | Bloomberg

AT&T Inc. said a widespread outage that took hours to resolve Thursday was caused by “an incorrect process” while expanding the wireless network.

The software issue interrupted wireless service for hundreds of thousands of subscribers and prompted the FBI and US Department of Homeland Security to investigate the outage.

“Based on our initial review, we believe that today’s outage was caused by the application and execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network, not a cyber attack,” an AT&T spokesman said in a statement. “We are continuing our assessment of today’s outage to ensure we keep delivering the service that our customers deserve.”

AT&T said all wireless service was restored Thursday afternoon, capping a day of frustration that began in the early hours of the morning New York time. AT&T customers filed more than 1.5 million outage reports on service-tracking website Downdetector.

The federal government began investigating whether the network failure was caused by a cyberattack, according to two US officials familiar with the situation, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive information.

The Federal Communications Commission also has been in touch with AT&T to try and ascertain the cause, White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters earlier. “DHS and the FBI are looking into this as well, working with the tech industry, these network providers, to see what we can do from a federal perspective to enhance their investigative efforts to figure out what happened here,” Kirby said.

Early Thursday, mobile-phone customers from multiple carriers started reporting problems, but it soon became clear that AT&T’s network was the culprit. Outages were reported from cities including New York, Houston, Atlanta, Miami, Chicago and Dallas. The service disruption upended communications with emergency responders, and officials took to social media urging AT&T customers to use landlines to call 911 for emergencies.

With about 87 million subscribers, AT&T is the third-largest US retail wireless carrier, behind Verizon Communications Inc. and T-Mobile US…

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Inside the cyber ‘war room’ where Israeli AI experts work to locate Hamas hostages

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“I have not slept for almost two weeks now, but every time I start falling asleep I have pictures of the hostages on my desk that get me up and running again,” says Omri Marcus, who is heading one half of the Gitam BBDO “war room” in Tel Aviv.

This time two weeks ago, Gitam BBDO was not a “war room” at all. It was a leading creative agency based in the Israeli capital.

The day after Hamas launched its attack on the country, it restyled itself into what it calls a war room, made up of volunteers who have abandoned their day jobs to turn their efforts towards trying to rescue the 203 hostages the militant group captured and are holding across the border in Gaza.

The Gazan enclave is under Israeli siege with food, fuel and water access blocked off. The territory, often likened to an “open air prison” has been under Israeli bombardment since Hamas, the militant group which govern it, launched the attack on Israel in which the hostages were taken and civilians deliberately targeted to be killed.

The war room in Tel Aviv has two floors – one utilises the talents of creatives to build support for the hostages around the world, while the other is more practical. It uses face recognition tools and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to verify whether hostages are dead or alive, and pinpoint their last recorded location within Gaza.

(Photo: Gitam BBDO group)

Refael Franco took i through the process of tracking the hostages. The group collects data on social media usage within Gaza, with graphs showing the number of texts sent and app usage on the tracked phones – even down to the number of times particular emojis were sent.

Data collected from social media usage and photos and videos from the Gaza strip are then uploaded to a software called tag box, which links it to hostages using images of them provided by their families and the military.

Any matches detected are shared with the IDF’s newest unit – the task force for finding missing and displaced people.

Franco, who founded Code Blue, a crisis management company based in Israel and Germany and is the former head of Israel’s National Cyber Directorate, showed i how one hostage had been detected from a TikTok uploaded from Gaza…

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What Is Hashing? How Does Hash Key Work And Salting Helps It?

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Safeguarding your data and personal information has never been more important than today and hashing is a widely used method that acts as a guardian for our passwords and other types of sensitive information.

Hashing is a crucial element in modern cybersecurity, quietly safeguarding sensitive data and ensuring the integrity of digital information. At its core, hashing is a process that takes an input, referred to as a ‘key,’ and transforms it into a fixed-length string of characters known as a ”hash.” What makes hashing indispensable is its ability to provide a unique digital signature for data, allowing any alterations to be quickly detected.

The fundamental concept behind hashing revolves around the use of a mathematical algorithm called a hash function. This algorithm is designed to meet specific criteria: it must produce a consistent output length, be deterministic, efficient, exhibit the avalanche effect, and possess preimage resistance. These criteria ensure the reliability and security of the hash.

Let us go through why is hashing so important in today’s cybersecurity and how it is implemented in various fields.

What is hashing and salting
Hashing is a vital method for safeguarding personal data and passwords in today’s cybersecurity (Image credit)

What is hashing?

Hashing is a process that takes an input, often referred to as a ‘key,’ and transforms it into a fixed-length string of characters, known as a ”hash”. This hash is typically much shorter than the original input. The core components of hashing include:

  1. Hash function: At the heart of hashing is the hash function, which is an algorithm responsible for performing the transformation. A good hash function should meet specific criteria:
    • It should take an input of any size and produce a fixed-length output (e.g., 256 bits).
    • It should be deterministic, meaning the same input will always yield the same hash.
    • It should be quick to compute.
  2. Uniqueness: Ideally, different inputs should produce unique hashes. While it’s theoretically possible for two different inputs to yield the same hash (a collision), modern hash functions are designed to minimize this occurrence
  3. Irreversibility: Hashing is a one-way process, meaning you cannot reverse a…

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