Turns out the fastest way to get a company to consider paying a ransom isn’t calling the CEO – it’s targeting the 46-year-old IT manager.
That’s according to Zscaler, whose ThreatLabz researchers tracked 351 victims across 334 organizations caught up in a single ransomware campaign over the course of a month.
The data suggests today’s ransomware crews have become oddly specific about their preferred victim profile: nearly two-thirds of victims held manager-level titles or above, the average victim was a 46-year-old Gen Xer, and three-quarters worked in accounting and finance, sales, operations, HR, or marketing. Half worked in the industrial or IT sectors.
Read more…
Source: The Register News
Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- Masslogger Swipes Microsoft Outlook, Google Chrome Credentials
February 17, 2021
Cybercriminals are targeting Windows users with a new variant of the Masslogger trojan, which is spyware designed to swipe victims’ credentials from Microsoft Outlook, Google Chrome and various instant-messenger accounts. Researchers uncovered the campaign targeting users in Italy, Latvia and Turkey starting in mid-January. When the Masslogger variant launched its infection chain, it disguised its malicious ...
- U.S. Accuses North Korean Hackers of Stealing Millions
February 17, 2021
The U.S. Department of Justice has indicted three North Korean computer programmers for their alleged participation in widespread, destructive cyberattacks as part of the advanced persistent threat (APT) known as Lazarus Group. The indictment broadens the scope of crimes that the DoJ has linked to Lazarus Group (and by extension, to North Korea). The feds also ...
- Kia Motors America suffers ransomware attack, $20 million ransom
February 17, 2021
Kia Motors America has suffered a ransomware attack by the DoppelPaymer gang, demanding $20 million for a decryptor and not to leak stolen data. Kia Motors America (KMA) is headquartered in Irvine, California, and is a Kia Motors Corporation subsidiary. KMA has nearly 800 dealers in the USA with cars and SUVs manufactured out of West ...
- Details Tied to Safari Browser-based ‘ScamClub’ Campaign Revealed
February 17, 2021
Details of a flaw in Apple’s Safari browser, publicly disclosed Tuesday, outline how the cybergang known as ScamClub reached 50 million users with a three-month-long malicious ad campaign pushing malware to mobile iOS Chrome and macOS desktop browsers. The Safari bug, patched on Dec. 2 by Apple, was exploited by a malvertising campaign that redirected traffic ...
- DDoS attacks in Q4 2020
February 16, 2021
Cybercriminals are constantly on the lookout for means and methods to make attacks more destructive. In Q4 2020, Citrix ADC (application delivery controller) devices became one such tool, when perpetrators abused their DTLS interface. The DTLS (Datagram Transport Layer Security) protocol is used to establish secure connections over UDP, through which most DNS queries, as ...
- Security bugs left unpatched in Android app with one billion downloads
February 16, 2021
An Android application downloaded more than one billion times contains unpatched vulnerabilities that the app maker has failed to fix for more than three months. The vulnerabilities impact the Android version of SHAREit, a mobile app that allows users to share files with friends or between personal devices. The bugs can be exploited to run malicious code ...