Stephen Jones Press office
Tech Crunch: “The ransomware industry is thriving, not losing. Despite various law enforcement wins against ransomware actors, like the sweeping takedown of LockBit and the seizure of Radar, hackers continue to reap the rewards of these data-theft attacks — and 2024 looks set to be their most profitable year to date.
That’s according to Allan Liska, a ransomware expert who serves as a threat intelligence analyst at cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. In an interview with TechCrunch in London earlier this month, Liska confirmed that 2024 is on track to be another record-breaking year for ransomware — with equally record-breaking ransoms paid by victims to hackers. “The curve is going to flatten a little bit, which I guess is good news. But a record-breaking year is still a record-breaking year,” Liska told TechCrunch. “We’ve also this year, for the first time that I’m aware of, had four eight-figure ransoms paid.”
One of these eight-figure sums was the $22 million ransom that Change Healthcare paid to the Russian cybercrime gang ALPHV following the theft of highly sensitive medical data related to hundreds of millions of Americans. What followed, Liska said, was rampant in-fighting between the ransomware group and its affiliate, who carried out the hack on ALPHV’s behalf. “If you wanted a reality show, this was it,” said Liska. This apparent scrappiness is only likely to worsen as younger threat actors join the ransomware foray, as we’ve seen with highly skilled and financially motivated hackers like Lapsus$ and, more recently, Scattered Spider. This loose-knit group of predominantly teenage, native English-speaking hackers has carried out some of the most disastrous cyberattacks in history, such as the breach of MGM Hotels and the suspected links to the recent cyberattack on Transport for London.
The disjointed nature of these attackers is evidenced by the increase of data theft-only attacks, which have increased by more than 30% in 2024, according to Liska. “That is up significantly from just a couple of years ago,” he told TechCrunch. “A lot of the newer threat actors just don’t want to deal with encryption, decryption, or anything like that,” referring to attacks that exfiltrate huge amounts of stolen data..”
The Boomer Stuff Avalanche - Business Insider ungated – “Millennials are about to be crushed by all the junk their parents accumulated…In some ways, this is a timeless problem — every generation accumulates things, and younger generations rebel against older generations’ tastes. But the sheer size of the current problem is unprecedented given that baby boomers are an extra-materialistic breed.
They grew up in a time of economic prosperity, were raised by parents for whom the Great Depression loomed large, and hit their prime in the ’80s, when people were driving around with bumper stickers reading, “He who dies with the most toys wins.” They’re also collectors — they stocked up on Hummel figurines and Bing & Grøndahl plates and picked up a souvenir every time they went on vacation.
In short, boomers love stuff, and not just their stuff. They held on to their parents’ stuff when they inherited it, and a lot of them are sitting with their kids’ stuff in their attics now, too. Sometimes, the sheer task of organizing and purging is so daunting that retirees who are ready and excited to move don’t, opting instead to stay put with their collection of trinkets.
It’s three generations of stuff,” Mindy Godding, a professional organizer and the owner of Abundance Organizing, said. And because boomers have famously been remaining in their homes, the situation is even worse. “The longer it’s been since you’ve been through a major transition, like a move or renovation, the more things can pile up and accumulate in the nooks and crannies in your house,” Godding added…
Find A Grave: Find the graves of ancestors, create virtual memorials or add photos, virtual flowers and a note to a loved one’s memorial. Search or browse cemeteries and grave records for every-day and famous people from around the world.
Slate – My Weekends With the Dead – “In 2017, I decided to solve a longtime mystery about my family. It led me to a controversial pastime that consumes thousands—and has changed untold lives. It’s a good way to spend a Saturday morning—if, admittedly, a strange one. I wake up and pack a tote bag with leather gardening gloves, a water bottle, a towel, and headphones. Then I drive to one of Chicago’s 272 cemeteries and spend hours taking pictures of the dead. I do this once a month or so. Alongside shots of my dog and gym selfies, my phone’s camera roll is filled with photos of gravestones of all shapes, sizes, and materials: massive granite monuments fit for the Chicago industrialists buried underneath them, humble flat markers that I’m prone to tripping over, and sandstone slabs so worn down by centuries of sun, rain, and snow that there’s no telling who’s buried there. I should say: It’s not just me.
The photos I take end up on a website called FindaGrave.com, a repository of cemeteries around the world. Created in 1995 by a Salt Lake City resident named Jim Tipton, the website began as a place to catalog his hobby of visiting and documenting celebrity graves. In the late 1990s, Tipton began to allow other users to contribute their own photos and memorials for famous people as well.