Explore how ransomware attacks work, how they infiltrate networks, and what steps individuals and organizations can take to prevent, detect, and recover from ransomware incidents. Articles cover recent ransomware variants, encryption tactics, backup strategies, and incident response planning.
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In January 2024, Microsoft disclosed that a Russian state-sponsored threat actor — Midnight Blizzard — breached corporate email accounts by exploiting a legacy test tenant that lacked multi-factor authentication. No zero-day exploit. No sophisticated malware. Just a password spray against a forgotten cloud account. That single oversight gave attackers months of access
In 2023, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center received over 880,000 complaints with potential losses exceeding $12.5 billion — a 22% increase from the previous year. A staggering number of those incidents involved some form of malicious software. Understanding the types of malware your organization faces isn&
A Single Email Cost One Hospital Chain $100 Million In 2024, Change Healthcare — a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group — suffered a ransomware attack that disrupted pharmacy operations, insurance claims, and patient care across the United States. The company paid a $22 million ransom. Total damages exceeded $100 million. The initial entry
The Ransom Note Nobody Expected In January 2026, a mid-sized hospital network in the American Midwest discovered that every imaging workstation, patient scheduling system, and billing server had been encrypted overnight. The ransom demand: 200 Bitcoin. Staff resorted to paper charts and fax machines for eleven days. Surgeries were postponed.
During a breach investigation last year, I watched a small business owner stare blankly at the incident report. "What's lateral movement? What's a C2 server? What does exfiltration even mean?" He wasn't unintelligent — he just didn't speak the language. And
In 2023, MGM Resorts lost an estimated $100 million after a social engineering attack that started with a single phone call to a help desk. The attackers didn't exploit some exotic zero-day vulnerability. They used techniques that anyone familiar with basic cybersecurity terminology would recognize — vishing, credential theft,
A Hospital Goes Dark in 90 Seconds In 2024, Change Healthcare — one of the largest health payment processors in the United States — was hit by the ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware group. The attack disrupted pharmacy operations, delayed patient care, and exposed the protected health information of roughly 100 million individuals. UnitedHealth
In 2023, MGM Resorts lost an estimated $100 million after a social engineering attack that started with a single phone call to their help desk. The threat actor impersonated an employee, gained access to internal systems, and deployed ransomware across the enterprise. The entire operation took roughly 10 minutes to
In 2023, MGM Resorts lost an estimated $100 million after a social engineering attack opened the door to ransomware that crippled casino floors, hotel check-ins, and digital room keys for days. The attackers didn't use some exotic, never-before-seen weapon. They used well-known types of malware — the same categories
That "Unsubscribe" Click Just Cost Someone Their Entire Network Last year, I worked with a mid-size logistics company that lost access to every file server, customer database, and email system they had. The entry point? A single spam email disguised as a shipping notification. One employee clicked an
