Ransomware hit Louisiana’s state government hard yesterday, shutting down multiple websites and email systems after it fell victim for the second time in just a few months to a ransomware attack.

Spear phishing is an email spoofing attack targeting a specific organization or individual. Spear phishing emails aim to infect the victim with malware or trick them into revealing sensitive data and sensitive information. Spear phishers look for target who could result in financial gain or exposure of trade secrets for corporate espionage, personally identifiable information (PII) for identity theft and protected health information (PHI) for insurance fraud.

Did you know that 70% of worldwide email traffic is either spam or has malicious attached documents? According to reports, there is a malware attack every 40 seconds, 66% of which is downloaded content from emails attachments. These statistics alone are proof that cyber-criminals do not slow down, and in order to keep up, we need to be vigilant too.

Researchers have detected a new ransomware family they’re calling “PureLocker” which attackers are using to target enterprises’ production servers. Intezer detected a sample of the ransomware masquerading as the Crypto++ C++ cryptography library. In their analysis of the sample, they noticed something unusual when they saw that alleged library contained functions related to music playback.

Malware, or malicious software, is any program or file that is harmful to a computer user. Types of malware include computer viruses, worms, Trojan horses, spyware, adware and ransomware. Generally, software is considered malware based on the intent of its creator rather than its actual features.

Trend analysis is an important topic within threat intelligence. It lets us forecast where things are headed; whether they’re getting better, worse or different; and where we should be focusing our precious budgets. The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) recently released the Incident trends report (October 2018 – April 2019). This highlights some of the trends seen across various UK government entities, organizations and sectors.

The risk to supply chain assets due to malware is huge and the build, test and production environments are always at risk of suffering a malware attack. What ensues is failure of existing detection methods failure and compromise of software development lifecycle. Environments are often exposed to all imaginable vectors of attack caused by insider contamination due to malicious third-party software components. The production environment is at a high risk too.

Normally it works like this. Someone gets infected by ransomware, and then they pay the ransom. The victim then licks their wounds and hopefully learns something from the experience. And that’s what happened to Tobias Frömel, a German developer and web designer who found himself paying a Bitcoin ransom of 670 Euros (US $735) after his QNAP NAS drive was hit by the Muhstik ransomware.

You don't need to be a cybersecurity expert to know that ransomware attacks have become one of today's greatest IT security threats. From WannaCry to the attack against the city of Atlanta, major ransomware exploits have become so commonplace in the last few years that they may seem impossible to avoid. Fortunately, preventing ransomware is far from impossible. Let's take a look at a few strategies you can put in place to mitigate your risk of becoming part of the next ransomware statistic.

Malware, or malicious software, is any program or file that harms a computer or its user. Common types of malware include computer viruses, ransomware, worms, trojan horses and spyware. These malicious programs can steal, encrypt or delete sensitive data, alter or hijack key computing functions and to monitor the victim's computer activity.