PC Matic Blog

Ransomware Costs: Ransomware Payouts Jumped More Than 300% in 2020

Mary James / March 10, 2021

Money, Money, Money Ransomware Costs! Ransomware is profitable, but just how profitable is it? Initial reports for 2020 are in and the payday was huge. BankInfoSecurity.com reported that there was about “370 million in known 2020 ransomware profits. Via ransoms that got paid – which represents a 336% increase over known 2019 earnings…” These numbers are […]

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Your Data Was Compromised; What You Don’t Know

Mary James / February 15, 2021

How Long Is Too Long If you’ve never received an email letting you know your data was compromised, consider yourself lucky. I’ve had three within the past five years (one of which was within the past week). They’re all the same; carefully worded non-apologies about the leaking of your personal information. A lot of the

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Washington State Introduces Cybersecurity Legislation

Mary James / February 12, 2021

After a data breach that affected more than 1 million people in Washington State, legislators introduced two bills. One aims to strengthen cybersecurity infrastructure while the other wants to change data collection. As reported by Governing.com, “If passed, the two bills heard in committee Tuesday would boost cybersecurity at state government agencies. A bill requested

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New Year, New Ransomware

Mary James / January 23, 2021

Babuk Locker Emerges in 2021 In less than a week, 2021 introduced a new type of Enterprise ransomware. Babuk Locker is now less than a month old and has amassed a small collection of victims. So far ransoms have been demanded in bitcoin and are under $100,000, to what I could find. If you aren’t

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Knoxville Pays For Hack But Not The Hackers

Mary James / January 14, 2021

A Costly Repair Wednesday morning, the city of Knoxville, TN released invoices showing $217,000 paid for a ransomware attack. The city was hit in June of 2020, and the hackers asked for 42.5 Bitcoin. At the time, that was worth nearly $400,00 (as of publishing that would now be worth about $1.6 million). The city

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PC Matic joins with NIST's NCCoE's Cybersecurity Center to help Business & Government Agencies combat cyber crime.

PC Matic Selected to Join NIST ‘National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence’

Gavin Smith / January 12, 2021

PC Matic, the Cybersecurity Solutions Leader joins in partnership with NIST’s National Center of Excellence to fight cyber crime and threats.

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Ransomware In 2021

Mary James / December 31, 2020

Where We’ve Been We’ve written extensively this year about the explosion of ransomware. We thought 2020 was bad enough with a 350% increase in ransomware in two years, but then the SolarWinds hack hit and changed the game. Ransomware evolves. As new technologies come out to beat it, ransomware changes its face. At first, we

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Compal Hit by Ransomware

Mary James / November 13, 2020

Second Largest Laptop Manufacturer In The World Compal is huge. They build laptops for Apple, Acer, Lenovo, Dell, Toshiba, HP, and Fujitsu. This makes it even more worrisome that the Taiwanese manufacturer was reportedly hit by ransomware. The leak was reported on Sunday. Subsequently, employees returning to work Monday were instructed to check their machines

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Malware, ransomware and viruses infecting schools K-12.

K-12 Warned To Be Wary By FBI – School Software Virus Warning

Mary James / September 15, 2020

Schools Targeted With Malware, Ransomware & Software Viruses School Virus Software Warnings: The FBI is warning schools to be cautious as they reopen their doors this year. Another type of virus is snaking its way through the American school system, and it’s prevalence is due, in part, to COVID-19. School systems are fast becoming the

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Under Attack

Mary James / August 13, 2020

Ransomware Attacks Happen Long Before The Ransom Is Posted Ransomware is an increasing problem globally, costing billions annually with the price tag only increasing. While a ransom message popping up on the screen, followed by the realization that your files are locked, can be surprising, it definitely isn’t an immediate result of being hacked. Attacks

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