Ransomware alive, kicking
Ransomware is alive and well, and making a nuisance of itself. The BBC published details of the negotiations which led to the University of California San Francisco paying a $1.14m ransom to regain access to encrypted data. Malwarebytes reports on a new, powerful ransomware strain designed to attack Mac users. And Proofpoint says it has seen a recent rise in the number ransomware attacks being distributed by email, with hundreds of thousands of messages sent every day. Criminals use a range of lures to trick people into opening them, including subject lines related to coronavirus. The past month has seen a slight increase in email-based attacks that try to install ransomware directly, rather than installing a download utility first. Proofpoint says this follows a long, relatively quiet period and warns it may herald the return of large-scale ransomware campaigns last seen in 2018. As always, the best protection against ransomware is to have tried and tested backup solutions. UCSF got its data back, but paying the ransom is no guarantee of that.