Experts Aim To Combat COVID-19 Cyber Attacks
Threat researchers at Microsoft, ClearSky Cyber Security, and Okta are among the hundreds of security experts helping the medical community fight COVID-19 cyberattacks under the collective name of the COVID-19 CTI League.
The the community of experts aims to protect the technological infrastructure of front-line medical resources from cyber-attacks and consists of cyber-threat intelligence experts, incident responders, and other security experts experienced at detecting, responding, and neutralising threats.
League members will prioritise efforts on helping hospitals and healthcare facilities fend off ransomware and other threats from attackers seeing to exploit the general mayhem triggered by the COVID-19 health crisis.The Objective of the Covid-19 CTI League will be to boost the cyber defense capabilities of various companies and train the employees on how to identify and thwart such attacks in an effective way- especially in scenarios where work from home has become a necessity than just merely an option.
In its mission statement the CTI League says ‘We are a community of CTI experts, Incident responders and Industry experts working to neutralise all cyber threats looking to exploit the current pandemic... we identify, analyse and neutralise all threats but at this most sensitive time are prioritising front-line medical resources and critical infrastructure’.
Hospitals around the world have seen a big increase in cyberattacks over the past year, in which critical IT systems are encrypted with malware. Gangs demand a Bitcoin ransom in return for the decryption key.
Healthcare organisations are often found to be to soft target for ransomware due to ageing IT infrastructure and a willingness to pay due to the critical nature of their work.
Fighting against cyber attacks during the pandemic
The founder of the project, Ohad Zaidenberg, is based in Israel, while other members of the management team include Nate Warfield, Chris Mills, and Marc Rogers, who are based in the United States.
Earlier this month cyber security firm Emsisoft and incident response company Coveware also announced an initiative offering free ransomware decryption tools and assistance to health care providers in the event of an attack. The Emsisoft company blog implored ransomware crews to think twice before attacking healthcare organisations saying that an attack on healthcare operations will have bad consequences and may result in loss of life especially with the current global virus.
CTI-League: SDX Central: Cybersecurity-Insiders: CoinTelegarph: Dark Reading:
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