Month: August 2020

The University of Utah admitted it paid a $457,059 ransom after a July 19, 2020 ransomware attack, that infected its systems on the College of Social and Behavioral Science CSBS). The University was able to recover the operations from backups, but decided to pay the ransom to avoid having ransomware operators leak student information online: “This was done as a proactive and preventive step to ensure information was not released on the internet.”

According to the University of Utah, the ransomware encrypted only 0.02% of the data stored on its servers. The University officials added that the university’s cyber insurance policy covered part of the ransom.

Read more about it here.

On August 18, 2020, Santander Bank became aware that many of its ATM’s were dispensing cash using fake debit cards and valid preloaded debit cards, more than the cash value stored on the cards. Criminal groups across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

In response, Sandander shut down all ATM machines that day. The next morning, ATM machines were available only to its customers.

As a result, dozens of people were arrested.

Read more about it here.

US-based business travel company CWT said last week that it paid cyber criminals $4.5 million as ransomware.

The attackers initially demanded $10 million, claiming that 30,000 CWT computers were infected, and 2 terabytes of files were encrypted. In reality, the number of the infected computers was smaller.

CWT negotiated with the attackers, and agreed to pay $4.5 million in Bitcoins (414 Bitcoins). After paying, it was able to access the encrypted files.

CWT posted revenues of $1.5 billion last year and says it represents more than a third of companies on the S&P 500 U.S. stock index.

Read more about it here.