Another Day Another Ransomware Attack - What I'm Reading 6/27/2017

CNN - Sarah Palin sues New York Times -

"Today, Sarah Palin took a stand against The New York Times Company by filing a lawsuit which seeks to hold The Times accountable for stating that Governor Palin is part of a 'sickeningly familiar pattern' of politically motivated violence and that she incited the horrific 2011 shooting of Representative Gabby Giffords," lawyers for Palin said in a statement.

...

The Times issued a correction a day later, noting that "no such link was established" between Palin's ad and the shooting, and that the ad in question "depicted electoral districts, not individual Democratic lawmakers, beneath stylized cross hairs." 

This occurs the same day that CNN had 3 employees resign for publishing an "unchecked" story based on one anonymous source.  One of those who resigned was a former New York Times reporter.  I'm not going to try and allege some sort of conspiracy, just note that this is could appear indicative of a blatant disregard for editorial neutrality and facts.  

NY Times - Cyberattack hits Ukraine The Spreads Internationally -

Computer systems from Ukraine to the United States were struck on Tuesday in an international cyberattack that was similar to a recent assault that crippled tens of thousands of machines worldwide.

It's ransomware related to WannaCry, but more sophisticated.  The address for paying the ransom is offline now so if you have been hit you are out of luck.  Make sure you have good backups of your data.  Don't leave the backupdrive connected when not in use or it will get encrypted too, if you are unlucky enough to get infected.

Dark Reading - Microsoft Integrates EMET into Fall Windows 10 Update -

There are two key components to Microsoft's approach, Lefferts explains. The first is hardening the Windows platform and making it tougher for adversaries. The second is leveraging cloud intelligence, behavioral modeling, and machine learning to view and manage threats.

Part of hardening the platform includes integrating EMET into Windows 10. Microsoft launched the free toolkit in 2009 to help businesses manage Windows security vulnerabilities. Admins could activate settings and features not enabled by default in Windows, and lock access to OS features they didn't use.

I always found EMET kind of a pain in the ass but still glad to see that it's back.

Infosec Island - WannaCry: How We Created an Ideal Environment for Malware to Thrive, and How to Fix It -

There aren't any really good excerptable parts so here's the jist:

1.  Lack of Network Segmentation
2.  Lack of prompt patching.  

Those two things could greatly decrease the impact of events like WannaCry and the ransomware attack today.

Network Computing - Why's My Network So Slow? -

Another article that doesn't really have any good excerpt's but does contain some good information.  Give it a read.