German and Hollywood Hospitals Under Cyber Attack

In response to the news that two hospitals, one in Germany and one in Hollywood have come under attack from ransomware, Kevin Epstein, VP of Advanced Security & Governance at Proofpoint explains what caused the attacks.

[su_note note_color=”#ffffcc” text_color=”#00000″]Kevin Epstein, VP of Threat Operations at Proofpoint :

“As will be detailed further in Proofpoint’s upcoming report, The Human Factor, cybercriminals are increasingly choosing human exploitation over technical exploits. Personal weaknesses are being leveraged in an unprecedented way-and at a scale never seen before.

The recent publicized compromises are most likely the only a fraction of the multi-million-message malicious email campaign earlier this week where the Dridex actors leveraged their botnet to distribute the new ransomware Proofpoint uncovered, ‘Locky’. We expect this trend to continue: people are the weakest link in cybersecurity, and will be used as unwitting pawns to download malicious apps and run code, hand over key credentials, and fraudulently wire money on attackers’ behalf.”[/su_note]

[su_box title=”About Proofpoint” style=”noise” box_color=”#336588″]Proofpoint Inc. (NASDAQ:PFPT) is a leading security-as-a-service provider that focuses on cloud-based solutions for threat protection, compliance, archiving & governance, and secure communications. Organizations around the world depend on Proofpoint’s expertise, patented technologies and on-demand delivery system to protect against phishing, malware and spam, safeguard privacy, encrypt sensitive information, and archive and govern messages and critical enterprise information.[/su_box]