Our featured speaker is Mr. Jon Shende the Chief Information Officer Financial Services Advisory Firm and the founding partner of MyVayda and Jaymin Shah, CTO and Co-Designer of MyVayda  will be having a fireside chat and facilitating our virtual workshop  

An example of ransomware is election database hacking the Associated Press recently reported that State of Georgia Election Database that was hack: 

"A ransomware attack that hobbled a Georgia county government in early October reportedly disabled a database used to verify voter signatures in the authentication of absentee ballots.

It is the first reported case of a ransomware attack affecting an election-related system in the 2020 cycle. Federal officials and cybersecurity experts are especially concerned that ransomware attacks — even ones that don’t intentionally target election infrastructure — could disrupt voting and damage confidence in the integrity of the Nov. 3 election."

A recent report by Washington (CNN Business)Microsoft has disrupted a massive hacking operation that it said could have indirectly affected election infrastructure if allowed to continue.

The company said Monday it took down the servers behind Trickbot, an enormous malware network that criminals were using to launch other cyberattacks, including a strain of highly potent ransomware.

Microsoft said it obtained a federal court order to disable the IP addresses associated with Trickbot's servers, and worked with telecom providers around the world to stamp out the network. The action coincides with an offensive by US Cyber Command to disrupt the cybercriminals, at least temporarily, according to The Washington Post.

What is Rasomware?

Ransomware has been a prominent threat to enterprises, SMBs, and individuals alike since the mid-2000s. In 2017, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received 1,783 ransomware complaints that cost victims over $2.3 million. Those complaints, however, represent only the attacks reported to IC3. The actual number of ransomware attacks and costs are much higher. In fact, there were an estimated 184 million ransomware attacks last year alone. Ransomware was originally intended to target individuals, who still comprise the majority of attacks today. (https://digitalguardian.com/blog/history-ransomware-attacks-biggest-and-worst-ransomware-attacks-all-time)

The first ever ransomware virus was created in 1989 by Harvard-trained evolutionary biologist Joseph L. Popp (now known as the 'father of ransomware'). It was called the AIDS Trojan, also known as the PC Cyborg. Popp sent 20,000 infected diskettes labeled “AIDS Information – Introductory Diskettes” to attendees of the World Health Organization’s international AIDS conference in Stockholm. The disks contained malicious code that hid file directories, locked file names and demanded victims send $189 to a PO Box in Panama if they wanted their data back. The AIDS Trojan was “generation one” ransomware malware and relatively easy to overcome. The Trojan used simple symmetric cryptography and tools were soon available to decrypt the file names. But the AIDS Trojan set the scene for what was to come. ttps://www.knowbe4.com/ransomware#:~:text=The%20first%20ever%20ransomware%20virus%20was%20created%20in,AIDS%20Trojan%2C%20also%20known%20as%20the%20PC%20Cyborg

GEW 2020: November 16 - 22, 2020

This November, GEN celebrates 12 years of helping millions of people unleash their ideas to start and scale new businesses through Global Entrepreneurship Week. The campaign began in 2008 with an emphasis on inspiring young people to make their mark and has grown to engage entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, researchers, and support organizations advancing innovation and economic growth in 180+ countries around the world.

35,000+ activities hosted by 15,000 partner organizations and leaders will engage more than 10 million participants during #GEW2020, connecting them to potential collaborators, mentors and even investors.