Cyb toer-attack: Is my computer at risk?

Obviously... I just wanna cry

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39896393

Cyber-attack: Is my computer at risk?

By Zoe Kleinman Technology reporter, BBC News

Technology reporter, BBC News

PA

Experts are warning that there could be further ransomware cases this week after the global cyber-attack. So, what has happened and how can organisations and individuals protect themselves from such attacks?

What is the scale of the attack?

Ransomware - a malicious program that locks a computer's files until a ransom is paid - is not new but the size of this attack by the WannaCry malware is "unprecedented", according to EU police body Europol.

It said on Sunday that there were believed to be more than 200,000 victims in 150 countries. However, that figure is likely to grow as people switch on their computers on Monday if their IT has not been updated and their security systems patched over the weekend.

There are also many other strains of ransomware which cyber-security experts say they are seeing being given new leases of life.

In the UK, the NHS was hit hard, but by Saturday morning the majority of the 48 affected health trusts in England had their machines back in operation. The NHS has not yet revealed what steps it took.

The malware has not proved hugely profitable for its owners so far. The wallets set up to receive ransom payments - $300 (£230) in virtual currency Bitcoin was demanded for each infected machine - contained about $30,000 when seen by the BBC. This suggests that most victims have not paid up.

Is my computer at risk?

WannaCry infects only machines running Windows operating systems. If you do not update Windows, and do not take care when opening and reading emails, then you could be at risk.

However, home users are generally believed to be at low risk to this particular strain.

You can protect yourself by running updates, using firewalls and anti-virus software and by being wary when reading emailed messages.

Regularly back up your data so you can restore files without having to pay up should you be infected, as there is no guarantee that paying the ransom will result in your files being unlocked.

The UK's National Cyber Security Centre website contains advice on how to apply the patch to stop the ransomware - MS17-010 - and what to do if you can't.

How did the attack spread so fast?

The culprit is malware called WannaCry and seems to have spread via a type of computer malware known as a worm.

Unlike many other malicious programs, this one has the ability to move around a network by itself. Most others rely on humans to spread by tricking them into clicking on an attachment harbouring the attack code.

The ransomware has been identified as WannaCry

Once WannaCry is inside an organisation, it will hunt down vulnerable machines and infect them too. This perhaps explains why its impact is so public - because large numbers of machines at each victim organisation are being compromised.

It has been described as spreading like the vomiting bug norovirus.

Why weren't people protected?

In March, Microsoft issued a free patch for the weakness that has been exploited by the ransomware. WannaCry seems to be built to exploit a bug found by the US National Security Agency.

When details of the bug were leaked, many security researchers predicted it would lead to the creation of self-starting ransomware worms. It may, then, have taken only a couple of months for malicious hackers to make good on that prediction.

It was originally thought that a number of victims were using Windows XP, a very old version of the Windows operating system that is no longer supported by Microsoft.

However, according to cyber-security expert Alan Woodward, from Surrey University, the latest statistics suggest this figure is actually very small.

Large organisations have to test that security patches issued by the provider of their operating systems will not interfere with the running of their networks before they are applied, which can delay them being installed quickly.

Who was behind the attack?

It's not yet known, but some experts are saying that it was not particularly sophisticated malware. The "kill switch" that stopped it spreading - accidentally discovered by a security researcher - may have been intended to stop the malware working if captured and put in what's called a sandbox - a safe place where security experts put computer malware to watch what they do - but not applied properly.

Ransomware has been a firm favourite of cyber-thieves for some time as it lets them profit quickly from an infection. They can cash out easily thanks to the use of the Bitcoin virtual currency, which is difficult to trace.

However it's unusual for an expert criminal gang to use so few Bitcoin wallets to collect their ransom demands - as in this case - as the more wallets there are, the more difficult the gang is to trace.

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https://amp.northjersey.com/amp/1350401001

Quest Diagnostics breach: What to do if you may have been affected

Visit IdentityTheft.gov/databreach to learn what you can do to protect your identity.

Federal Trade Commission

A data breach of one of Quest Diagnostic's billing vendors has left as many as 11.9 million people worried, wondering if their personal and medical information has been compromised. 

On Monday, Quest Diagnostics said that AMCA, a billing collections vendor, informed the company that there had been unauthorized access on AMCA's web payment page and that information from Quest Diagnostics and Optum360 customers may have been compromised.

The information stored on AMCA's affected system includes credit card numbers, bank account information, medical information and personal information, including Social Security numbers.

News of the breach has customers from across the country concerned .

"This is the 2nd time in two years that my information has been affected and it is becoming increasingly frustrating that more isn't being done to protect my personal information and raises another question as to if they really need this information in the first place?" said Will Becker, in an email.

In an email, Edwin Padilla, from Orlando, Florida, asked a reporter if there was a way to find out if he had been affected by the breach. Several other emails asked the reporter the same question.

So what can concerned customers do? Here are a few answers.

Who is affected?

Since Monday, neither Quest nor AMCA has put out a list of those affected or distributed instructions on how to find out if you've been affected.

As the story unfolds, start here.

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However, AMC said that they are planning to send letters to those affected.

"AMCA is sending out letters to affected customers who need to know certain information about their data."

Quest did narrow down the field of those potentially affected, clarifying that AMCA is a vendor used by Optum360, which in turn provides billing services to Quest.

As a collection agency, the individuals who might be impacted would be those who had a potentially "delinquent" account, said Wendy Bost, a spokeswoman for Quest. 

"We're waiting for more information, but to the best of our knowledge, it would be individuals who were late in their payment and are therefore delinquent," she said.

What is Quest doing?

Quest insists that since the security breach was at one of AMCA's systems, they have little information about the breach. 

"Again, we would not be in a position to clarify information on specific individuals as we await more details from AMCA," said Bost.

Quest released a statement on their website summarizing the incident and does provide a general service number, 866-MYQUEST. But if customers call, Quest would not be able to provide information on specific individual's accounts, said Bost.

Another data breach: LabCorp data breach exposes information of 7.7 million consumers

FCC ruling: Phone companies can block unwanted calls by default

They have my number? 5 ways to avoid being put on robocall lists

What is AMCA doing?

Emails to an AMCA spokesperson requesting information on what to do if you have an account with AMCA were not immediately returned.

However, AMCA announced that it would be providing 24 months of credit monitoring to anyone who had a social security number or credit card account compromised, even if the relevant state does not require it.

What can you do?

Those people impacted should consider adding a fraud alert to the credit reporting agencies and a credit freeze, said Darren Hayes, Assistant Professor at Pace University's Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems.

Email: torrejon@northjersey.com

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Is Equal Opportunity Just a Myth?  – Elyssa D. Durant, © 2012 - 2018

• More:
• Bronx
• The South
• Mythology
• Amazing Grace
• Equal Opportunity

In Amazing Grace: The lives of children and the conscience of a nation, (1995) Jonathan Kozol paints a vivid picture of the conditions in the poorest sections of New York City. During the early to mid 1990's, Kozol made several visits to Mott Haven in the South Bronx. As he describes in Amazing Grace, the South Bronx is one of the most severely segregated and poorest Congressional Districts in the United States.

The members of this community have been segregated into a hell plagued with sickness, violence and despair. Kozol argues that this strategic placement serves to isolate the rich from the realities they have thrust upon their fellow man. New Yorkers do not stroll through the streets of Mott Haven, and taxicabs take no short cuts through Beekman Avenue. Many taxicabs will not even venture past East 96^th Street. Out of sight is out of mind.

As I was reading Amazing Grace, I remember thinking back to my days living in Manhattan, coincidentally around the same time Kozol conducted his interviews in the South Bronx. I lived in what Kozol refers to as Manhattan's "Liberal West Side," an area that was undergoing rapid transformation and gentrification at the time Mayor Rudolph Giuliani took office.

There is no excuse for the conditions in which these people must live. No person should be forced into an apartment that has a higher ratio of cockroaches and rats than human beings.

In 1995, the American Sociological Association (ASA) held its annual conference in New York City. Prior to that meeting, they sent out a fact sheet that may be of interest to ASA members. In this sheet, they too described the same social conditions and asked their members to take note of the changes that occur at 96th Street. I can assure you that the conditions Kozol describes in his book were not exaggerated.

These children are desperately in need of the best schools, yet we give them the worst. They have few libraries, few safe havens, few doctors, and few role models. They have every reason to believe that they are throwaway children and we have certainly not shown them anything else. The social services we have provided are a bureaucratic nightmare. People in need are treated as sub-human, and made to feel ashamed of being poor.

These are among the sickest children in the world. Americans claim to be dedicated to the children and fool ourselves into believing that we are doing them a favor by providing them with medical care, public education, and public housing. Yet, the quality of their neighborhoods speaks volumes of our sentiment and intentions.

Shortly after Amazing Grace was published, managed care rapidly moved onto the New York scene. Around the same time, the Mayor announced he would be closing some of the hospitals that served the poorest of the poor because of financial problems associated with payment and large trauma departments.

Kozol makes the point that people could attempt to gain admissions at a better hospital than Bronx-Lebanon; yet, the privatization of Medicaid has now made this completely impossible. Further restrictions on medical care are inevitable as the result of Medicaid managed care. The law is not designed to protect these people, and this was made obvious in a recent conversation I had with a friend who practices medicine in New York.

My friend John works as a board certified trauma physician at a private hospital on the Upper East Side. The last black patient he treated at Beth Israel was famed rock singer Michael Jackson. I asked him if he ever gets any asthma patients in his ER. He knew immediately of whom I was speaking. "You mean the kids from the South Bronx?" he asked. He told me that they know better than to show up at Beth Israel. "But if they do?" I asked, and he replied, "We ship them back."

This is the reality. The best doctors treat the wealthiest patients rather than the sickest. Schools educate the best students rather than the neediest. It is no wonder that these children perform poorly in school. By every measure, these children are destined for failure. Their home life is less than enchanting, and they do not benefit from enriched environments and educated parents. Certainly, there are many dedicated parents who care about their children, but is that enough? When I was in school, children frequently asked the teacher, how will this help later in life. In my class, there was an unequivocal reply, but it could be argued that what children in the South Bronx need to learn couldn't be taught in the classroom.

There is no doubt that the prevalence of violence in urban neighborhoods affects the ability of children to perform well in school. There is a large body of empirical evidence that demonstrates the effects of chronic stress on memory and the learning process. Rather than taking the children out of these communities, we have constructed prison like buildings for them to attend school. They routinely have gunfire drills reminding them that danger is never far behind.

Children cannot learn in this environment. This constant stress triggers "hot-memory." Hot memory can be thought of as learning with your heart and not your mind. It is no wonder children perform inadequately in this environment.

It is bad enough that children live in such conditions, must we educate in them too? If we want underprivileged children to learn and grow spiritually, we must create an environment that allows their cool memory systems to take over.

It is only under these conditions that children will permit themselves to learn and develop their intellectual strengths. We have failed to create a safe home environment for urban children, but we can give serious thought to creating a school environment outside of the community so they have fewer fear-driven hours each day.

Studies consistently report lower academic achievement in urban neighborhoods like Mott Haven in the South Bronx. Children growing up in urban neighborhoods have a much higher incidence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Most researchers believe this to be the direct result of living in stressed communities plagued with street crime and violence. The potential impact of chronic stress on academic performance and achievement is not known, but reading scores in neighborhoods like Mott Haven certainly seem to indicate some type of causal relationship. There is virtually no research on looking at the long-term effects of this inflated incidence of PTSD among urban populations. It is important to develop an understanding of the effects of fear on the academic performance of urban adolescents so we can begin to dismantle the myths regarding school performance and minority children.

Under these conditions, it is not surprising to learn that students also report pervasive feelings of fear and do not feel secure despite the added presence of security personnel on school grounds. For these students, school is a mere extension of the violent communities in which they live.

Since urban communities have many different sources of stress, it is important to examine how school policies contribute to the learning environment in public schools. The quick response has been to install weapons detectors and hire school security for urban schools. The presence of school security certainly affects the climate of American public schools by establishing school environments that focus more on student behavior than student achievement. Together, the urban public school and the community it serves are a constant reminder of the poor living conditions and social reality of urban America.

The secured environment is an indication of the roles students are expected to play later in life. This is a lesson they will not soon forget.

Kozol makes it quite clear that there are several exceptional children in this community. There are probably as many exceptional children here as every other community around the country, yet, so few of them will make it out of the South Bronx. Kozol is careful not to dwell on the exceptional cases of children who successfully navigate their way into the main stream of society. Kozol does this so we do not develop a false sense of hope. If we cling to a few exceptional cases, we may come to believe that what we are giving enough to children like Anthony or Anabelle. Clearly, we can do more. Failure should be the exception-not the rule. Success should be the norm, and until it is, we should not give up hope for these children.

America claims to be dedicated to equal opportunity, yet equality is not sufficient in a community like Mott Haven. These kids need more. We need to think about equity, not equality. It is not enough to hide them away. These are visions we should never forget.

Welcome to America. The Wealthiest Nation in the World.

Reference: Kozol, Jonathan. (1995) Amazing Grace: The lives of children and the conscience of a nation. New York: Crown Publishing.

© 2012

🐧 A frisky penguin.

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