News Bytes: The ransomware gang are the good guys?  

Written By: Austin Miller

It seems that 2022 just gets stranger and stranger as we go on. Recently unearthed by CloudSEK, a ransomware gang has been sending out a piece of malware that forces victims to donate money to the poor and/or provide “financial assistance to patients in need”. 

When I’m used to reading about the latest ransomware gang’s intentions to steal hundreds of Bitcoins-worth of funds from unsuspecting organizations, this certainly came as a surprise to me. Where cybercriminals tend to send short ransom notes with a crypto address and some basic demands, this gang’s drawn-out call to arms serves more as a Robin Hood-like foil to the more common cyberthief. 

As can be seen in the above-depicted section of the note, the ransomware is accompanied with a heartfelt and well-intentioned note. Instead of demanding personal gain, we find a piece that tells the victim to commit an act of generosity and post proof of the act to social media. After this point, the malware will be lifted. 

Another “activity” that can be used to break out of the GoodWill ransomware. 

Although cybercriminals should always be stopped and cybersecurity professionals aren’t paid to get sentimental about the reasons for a full company shut down, it is certainly refreshing to see highly skilled malware creators use the tools that are available to them to do some good in the world. In a year where more people are feeling the pinch of inflation and economic instability, maybe it’s time for the companies who are reporting record profits to put their hands in their pockets. 

You can read the full investigation by CloudSEK into the ransomware here. 

VMware gets snapped up 

For people using VMware, it might be time to take a look at how necessary it is in your organization. The Infamous tech acquisitions group Broadcom is set to acquire VMware in a $61 billion within the next week and this is causing some users to become a little worried about the future prospects of the virtualization software company. 

In the past, Broadcom has taken over Symantec and CA Technologies, two companies which were pretty big news in the world of tech at the time. Due to Broadcom’s “harvesting” approach to business, the companies would go on to have reduced staffing numbers and decline in the overall quality of their output. 

Obviously, that’s all up in the air at the moment for VMware. But if you’re the kind of person who turns to Reddit for opinions about tech acquisitions – which the editor may or may not be – then now might be the time to have a look at some alternatives that are available to you and your organization. 

A look at the numbers for 2022 

Verizon’s annual cybersecurity report has been released – and here’s the PDF if anyone wants to take a look – and the numbers are predictably worrisome for people in the business. Not only are we seeing a large number of ransomware attacks and more general malware infections, but there is an increase in the number of security breaches that involved human failure over the last year. 

Now, I know – there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. But to see that 82% of all security breaches comes from human error in all common types of attack is a concern for people who are running workplace security training. According to the report, this includes the numbers of stolen or leaked credentials, phishing, misuse, and plain human error. 

Although we can’t blame people for making errors, it does show that a number of attack types are very prevalent and could be battled with better onsite training. As the SecPro goes forward, we are committed to helping you figure out better ways to train your co-workers and clients – using this Verizon report as a basis, it seems that it’s something that we should all be doing.