Summary:
Digital forensic experts are seen frequently in TV crime dramas, and they are often laughable, dredging up detailed crime evidence from a suspect's computer in a matter of seconds. Some newspaper articles about criminal activity cause me to wonder what the standards of evidence actually are. If I once searched for an article about cyber terrorism, could the cached data be used to incriminate me months later? This article should send chills down the spine of any computer user. It states that the field of digital forensics' "rapid growth means that has not been subjected to the same scientific scrutiny as other forensic techniques." The article mentions known bias in fingerprint analysis, but similar things have been long known for almost all forms of evidence. Digital forensics may have been given a pass for far too long.

Summary:
It's a seven mile trip to Martha's Vineyard and costs about $10 on the ferry. That business doesn't seem like a lucrative target for hackers, but nonetheless, there was an cyberextortion attempt against the Steamship Authority. The company took it in stride, after all, it wasn't as bad as a pandemic. They reverted to paper, lines were long, some people may have been late to weddings, but no ferry trips were canceled and no bitcoin moved to Eastern Europe.

Summary:
Anonymous cash is a fickle friend, as some of the ransomware extorters who got some millions of dollars from Colonial Pipeline discovered. The US Department of Justice located the Bitcoin wallet that had $2.3M USD of the ransom, and they got a warrant to seize it. The FBI had been following the transfers of the currency since it was initially paid, and they believe that their seizure was from a member of a gang named DarkSide.

Summary:
The 1.3 billion devices running Windows 10 should be immediately updated, says the software vendor. Even the beta testers for Windows 11 need to protect their machines with an update. Even Windows 7, for which there were to be no more updates, should get this update. Why? Because an race condition in the print spooler can be exploited to gain unlimited access to the machine. This information was accidentally released by a cybersecurity company, Sangfor, so there's no secret about the problem. Microsoft will release patches for Windows* (everything). One small step for software, one giant sinkhole for hackers.

Summary:
There are so many reasons that outsourcing IT makes good sense, but becoming a victim of a vulnerable infrastructure isn't one of them. Many Managed Service Providers use the Kaseya VSA product ("the Coca-Cola of remote management"), and the REvil hacker group found a way to use Kaseya to launch ransomware attacks on hundreds of businesses. The attack has some resemblance to SolarWinds, details are in this analysis (as well as others).

Summary:
"If you feel your systems have been compromised as a result of the Kaseya ransomware incident, we encourage you to employ all recommended mitigations, follow guidance from Kaseya and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to shut down your VSA servers immediately, and report your compromise to the FBI at ic3.gov. Please include as much information as possible to assist the FBI and CISA in determining prioritization for victim outreach. Due to the potential scale of this incident, the FBI and CISA may be unable to respond to each victim individually, but all information we receive will be useful in countering this threat."

Summary:
"StopRansomware.gov is the first central hub consolidating ransomware resources from all federal government agencies."

"DHS, DOJ, the White House, and our federal partners encourage all individuals and organizations to take the first step in protecting their cybersecurity by visiting StopRansomware.gov."

That website refers to a Ransomware Guide that was released in September of 2020. It includes Best Practices and a Response Checklist.