Besides the wide array of sending mail out to see if you can hit someone with some type of malware or ransomware, there can be a thing called targeted attacks, and this time it is ransomware related. It hit organizations in Taiwan, which is outside the United States for those who do not know.
In an article that Trend Micro wrote on the blog recently, I spotted this, and wanted to highlight this so that people can see what’s out there.
A new targeted attack has infected several organizations in Taiwan with a new ransomware family, which we have dubbed ColdLock. This attack is potentially
destructive as the ransomware appears to target databases and email servers for encryption.The information we gathered indicates that this attack started hitting organizations in early May. Analysis of the malware points to similarities between
ColdLock and two previously known ransomware families, specifically
Lockergoga, Freezing, and the EDA2 “educational” ransomware kit. There have been no indications that this attack has hit any other organization outside of those targeted; we do not believe
that this family is currently in widespread use.
The names of these other families are links within the article, so you aught to check these out if you are interested in this. Since it isn’t in wide spread use, that may be a good thing within itself, but something to highlight just the same.
I am so happy that this type of activity has not hit the disabled community to my knowledge, although what started me on this journey of talking about things like this goes all the way back to 2006 and episode 3 of this podcast. On that podcast, it was known then as only a virus, but it did hit the blind community more than other disabilities. I can share that podcast at some point, with the understanding that the audio is different, and I don’t believe I kept extensive notes like I do now.
The long of the short of that podcast is that this community was hit with a file claiming to be an app update to a program no longer in existance. Some blind people installed it, and the computer became useless.
I would hate to find out what Ransomware would do to our machines because we use access technology. I think this was a one time thing too, I’ve never heard anything more.
Back then, i had an article written on the now defunked about web site which was nice. I’d hate to see what ransomware would do to our computers if something like a program to disguise an update to a program that we use for whatever the reason is.
Are you interested in this Taiwan article dealing with Ransomware? Targeted Ransomware Attack Hits Taiwanese Organizations is the article, and I hope you enjoy this one.