Page 4 - Cyberattacks and Cyberscams: Is There an End in Sight?

Introduction

Cyberscams and

Cyberattacks

Surge

As Americans rummaged through closets for red, white, and
blue to wear and wave for their 2021 Independence Day cele-
brations, a notorious Russia-based cybergang launched its own
fi reworks. Just before the July 4 holiday weekend, REvil (short
for Ransomware Evil) hackers embedded ransomware into an
update from Kaseya, a US-based software provider with tens
of thousands of clients worldwide. The ransomware infected
Kaseya’s business customers and then spilled down the supply
chain to infect the customers of Kaseya’s customers. The single
blow impacted hundreds of organizations. The ransomware en-

crypted fi les and demanded a ransom from each customer for
the release of their fi les. Town offi cials, librarians, dentists, and
other victims lost access to records, billing systems, emails, and
anything else stored on their computers. The ransomware shot
around the globe, hitting a hospital in Romania, freezing com-
puters at schools in New Zealand, and bringing down about
seven hundred Swedish grocery stores. Soon after the attack,
according to the cybersecurity company Sophos, REvil gloated
on its website that it had infected over 1 million devices. For $70
million in Bitcoin, REvil promised to provide Kaseya a universal
decryptor, which Kaseya could then provide to its customers.

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