Bad Rabbit Ransomware Cyberattack Alert
Homeland Security Issues Warning on Latest Ransomware
The U.S. government has issued a warning about a new ransomware attack, dubbed Bad Rabbit, that rapidly spread through Russia and the Ukraine and is now beginning to affect the United States. The ransomware is said to use social engineering to pose as an Adobe update, and once clicked by a user it seizes the computer and demands a ransom. This should serve as a reminder that people should never download apps or software from pop-up advertisements or websites that don’t belong to the software company.
Experts are saying there are clear links to the NotPetya attack which struck the globe last June, doing hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to several major companies. The number of victims, however, appears to be significantly smaller than the NotPetya attack. Once the ransomware infects a machine, it scans the network for shared folders with common names and attempts to steal and exploit user credentials to get onto other computers.
Reported infections have occurred from:
- Drive-by downloads on infected websites
- Spear phishing e-mails with malicious attachments disguised as Adobe PDF files
- Brute force hacks on user accounts using weak passwords for VPN and Remote Desktop network access
Matrixforce Guardian Customers Are Protected
All Matrixforce Guardian customers are currently protected from Bad Rabbit. If nothing else, we have a reliable backup of your data and a disaster recovery plan in place that would allow us to quickly restore your systems should you be breached. However, we will continue to be on high alert and monitor your systems for any suspicious activities. Also, Windows Defender protects against the attack, and all the defenses for Cryptolocker Prevention and other ransomware still apply.
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