We're in Paris! And feeling proper relaxed after several days of wine and cheese too, I might add. This was a very impromptu end of 2023 weekly update as we balanced family time with doing the final video for the year. On the cyber side, the constant them over the last week has been ransomware; big firms, little firms, Aussie firms, American firms - it's just completely indiscriminate. Anecdotally, this seems to have really ramped up over 2023 so on that basis, 2024 will bring... well, let's wait and see, this industry is nothing if not full of surprises. Happy New Year friends 😊
References
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- Eagers Automotive in Australia got ransom'd (that's a fairly significant Aussie brand)
- The University of Western Australia has had a dump turn up on a popular hacking forum (not ransom by the look of it, but obviously still bad)
- Ohio Lottery is another ransomware victim (play the odds, lose your data)
- And no, you definitely can't use a credit card in the UK to buy lottery tickets (borrowing money to gamble ain't exactly financially sensible)
- Even a very localised Aussie taxi firm is on this week's ransomware books (I suspect there's a degree of automation that makes it a no-brainer to add even small firms)