2017 Ransomware Recap

Ransomware became a household name in 2016. As hackers extorted ransoms from hospitals, universities, and other groups in return for files, the public became aware of how vulnerable devices are in this connected age. Even with the awareness of this...
January 4, 2018

Trump Advisor Publicly Attributes WannaCry Attacks to North Korea

The U.S. government has publicly blamed North Korea for the May 2017 WannaCry ransomware attacks. The National Security Agency had previously said it had “moderate confidence” North Korea was behind the attack, and Trump adviser Thomas Bossert erased any remaining...
December 20, 2017

Datarecovery.com Offers Free Services to Personal Computer Users Affected By Wildfires

Thousands of firefighters are working around the clock to control California’s historically large wildfires. Officials predict that the largest of the blazes — the Thomas Fire —  will burn into January and become the most destructive California wildfire ever. Natural...
December 18, 2017

Holiday Sale on Ransomware

“One-time payment at the cheap price of $40 for a lifetime subscription. Buy it now! You’ll never get another offer like this.” It sounds straight from an infomercial or a magazine ad, but this sales pitch (with corrected grammar) came...
December 5, 2017

Apple Releases Update for Major Security Flaw in High Sierra

Apple has rushed a patch for macOS High Sierra to the Apple Security Updates website. According to the webpage, a vulnerability allowed attackers “to bypass administrator authentication without supplying the administrator’s password.”Dear @AppleSupport, we noticed a *HUGE*...
November 29, 2017

Ransomware Market Expands as Healthcare Industry Continues Feeling the Effects

A computer security company determined that the dark-web ransomware market has grown by 2,500 percent from 2016 to 2017. The company, Carbon Black, credits that expansion to the relative anonymity of Bitcoin and Tor as well as the lucrative return-on-investment...
October 25, 2017

The 4 Most Game-Changing Ransomware Attacks

Every week, new strains of ransomware infect computers or are spotted by security researchers while still in development. Most of them are small-scale operations that attract little attention. Every once in a while, a new malware will make headlines based...
October 9, 2017

Locky Creators Tweak Variants To Evade Detection

Locky ransomware first appeared in February 2016 using a simple but ingenious social engineering method. The distributors sent thousands of emails around the world with an infected Microsoft Word document that appeared as gibberish when opened. The message, “Enable macro...
October 4, 2017

Hurricane Harvey, Irma, & Maria Data Recovery Update (With Pictures)

Recently, Datarecovery.com offered free data recovery services to personal computer users affected by recent hurricanes, including Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma (and later Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico). Personal computer users only pay for the costs of shipping and, where...
September 25, 2017

Cracking Passwords: 11 Password Attack Methods (And How They Work)

At Datarecovery.com, we frequently recover lost passwords for everything from Word documents and RAR files to encrypted Linux volumes (LUKS encryption) and Bitcoin wallets. Our customers often ask about our methods; do we simply try every possible password, or is...
September 18, 2017