Organizations are significantly more vulnerable to ransomware attacks during weekends and holidays, according to a new study by Cybereason. Of the 500 UK security professionals included in the survey, 37% admitted their organization does not have specific contingency plans in place to mount a prompt response to a ransomware attack during weekend and holiday periods. This is despite all the respondents being at organizations that had previously suffered a successful ransomware attack. This lack of preparedness has…

Security experts have warned of a surge in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks in the third quarter, with quantity, size and complexity all increasing in the period. The findings come from Lumen’s Q3 DDoS Report, which revealed that the firm mitigated 35% more attacks in the quarter than Q2 2021. The vendor claimed that the largest bandwidth attack it tackled during the period was 612 Gbps — a 49% increase over Q2. The largest packet rate-based…

Security researchers have linked the notorious state-sponsored Ghostwriter cyber-espionage and disinformation operation to Belarus for the first time. An extensive report published yesterday noted threat intelligence and forensics firm Mandiant linked the UNC1151 group with “high confidence” to the Belarusian government. It has been said in the past that UNC1151 provides “technical support” to Ghostwriter. “This assessment, along with observed Ghostwriter narratives consistent with Belarusian government interests, causes us to assess with moderate confidence that Belarus is also likely…

The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has hailed its world-beating cybersecurity expertise after handling hundreds of incidents and disrupting millions of cyber-attack campaigns over the past year. The government agency, part of signals intelligence body GCHQ, said it offered wraparound support for a record 777 incidents over the period, including attacks on COVID-19 vaccine research, distribution and supply chains. That’s an increase of over 7% on the previous year, with a fifth (20%) of cases in…