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Ransomware is hitting small businesses hard. But most of the legislation, regulations, and headlines focus on large businesses. The math is simple -- large businesses impact many end-users, and they have lots of money to pay lobbyists, so they wind up stealing the show when it comes to ransomware. But what about the local print shop, deli, or accounting office? Even though small businesses are suffering from ransomware 70 percent more often than large businesses (according to the Cyber Edge 2022 Cyberthreat Report), government regulations haven’t changed to accommodate them.

Pro-Russian hacktivist group Killnet has kept very busy since Russia invaded Ukraine. After declaring war against organizations in Ukraine-allied countries, Killnet carried out attacks in Lithuania, Norway, and Italy, to name a few. These attacks have left many wondering if their organizations will be next.

During the week of July 18, GroupSense analysts noted an announcement from Killnet. The group claimed that they would attack Lockheed Martin, a US defense contractor, with a new cyber tool. This attack would be different than most others that Killnet carries out: they will not be using a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack. GroupSense analysts believe that Killnet continue shifting away from DDoS attacks, and instead carry out hack-and-release attacks. GroupSense analysts provided screenshots and translations from hacking forums with evidence supporting the move from DDoS to hack-and-release.

On July 12, a Killnet affiliate group called Zarya Squad posted six files to Telegram they claim to have stolen from the State Archival Service of Ukraine.

GroupSense CEO and Co-Founder Kurtis Minder was recently featured in SC Media with his article, "The Insider Threat Now Lives Outside the Office." In the article, Kurtis reviews the top ways that employees can help protect your organization's data. 

As Americans, our civic duties include voting, sitting on juries, and paying taxes—but those aren't the only duties that promote American values. GroupSense CEO Kurtis Minder believes that cyber hygiene is your civic duty, too. Last weekend, Kurtis had the honor of presenting at TedX Grand Junction. During his talk, "What You Need to Know About Ransomware," Kurtis spoke about the actions we can all take to protect our nation and its critical infrastructure: small businesses.

Recently Bryce Webster-Jacobsen, Director of Intelligence Operations at GroupSense, was featured in Lexology's "Social Links: Behavioral Targeting Under Scrutiny from Lawmakers" article. Bryce was quoted from his Axios feature: Activist Movements Drive Misinformation Mayhem. The Lexology highlight is below. 

⁠Recently Bryce Webster-Jacobsen, Director of Intelligence Operations at GroupSense, was featured on Dark Reading's "What the Conti Ransomware Group Data Leak Tells Us".

Austin, Texas & Arlington, Va. --CynergisTek (NYSE American: CTEK), leading cybersecurity, privacy, compliance, and IT audit firm helping organizations in highly regulated industries navigate emerging security and privacy issues, announces a new agreement with GroupSense to provide organizations with vital threat intelligence to identify and mitigate attacker activity. This partnership offers CynergisTek’s customer base ransomware negotiation services and provides increased capabilities around incident response (IR) training and tabletop exercises.

“In order for healthcare organizations to more successfully anticipate where cyber attackers are likely to be present, they need a clearer picture of their risk and a better understanding of their environment,” said Mac McMillan, President & CEO of CynergisTek. “Incorporating GroupSense’s capabilities into our Risk and Incident Response services enables us to assist our clients in performing better reconnaissance, thereby enhancing their resilience. Just as important as being able to anticipate the threat, so is being able to execute more precisely when adverse situations arise. Incorporating ransomware negotiation and deeper awareness into client IR immersive exercises and incident response further enhances the value of our support to our clients,” he says.

“I am excited about the launch of our partnership with CynergisTek,” said Kurtis Minder, founder and CEO of GroupSense. “Given the increased attack surface, especially in the healthcare industry, organizations need solutions, not an increase in alerts or data feeds. The combined digital risk and attack surface capability of GroupSense, with the solution expertise of CynergisTek, solves IT risk problems while reducing operational overhead.”

This partnership marks CynergisTek’s focus on building cyber resiliency by helping businesses become proactive against threats and develop effective incident response procedures. CynergisTek and GroupSense are providing customers with threat intelligence capabilities that allow for healthcare specific insight on where organizations should prioritize remediation efforts based on their specific risk profile. CynergisTek clients will have access to additional threat monitoring and foot printing capabilities that help expose unknown gaps that organizations may have with the use of GroupSense’s cyber reconnaissance platform and team of highly trained analysts.

About GroupSense

GroupSense is a digital risk protection services company that delivers customer-specific intelligence that dramatically improves enterprise cybersecurity and fraud-management operations. Unlike generic cyber-intelligence vendors, GroupSense uses a combination of automated and human reconnaissance to create finished intelligence that maps to each customer's specific digital business footprint and risk profile. This enables customers and partners to immediately use GroupSense's intelligence to reduce enterprise risk, without requiring any additional processing or management by overstretched security and fraud-prevention teams. GroupSense is based in Arlington, Va., with a growing customer base that includes large enterprises, state and municipal governments, law enforcement agencies and more.

About CynergisTek, Inc.

CynergisTek is a top-ranked cybersecurity consulting firm helping organizations in highly-regulated industries, including those in healthcare, government, and finance navigate emerging security and privacy issues. CynergisTek combines intelligence, expertise, and a distinct methodology to validate a company's security posture and ensure the team is rehearsed, prepared, and resilient against threats. Since 2004, CynergisTek has been dedicated to hiring and retaining experts who bring real-life experience and hold advanced certifications to support and educate the industry by contributing to relevant industry associations.

Original Press Release: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220316005363/en

As Russia unleashes war on Ukraine, many are asking about a possible Russian cyber-attack. Asharq News interviewed Bryce Webster-Jacobsen, Director of Intelligence Operations at GroupSense, about the Russian Ukraine Conflict and its impact on the cyber nexus.

TV Globo interviewed GroupSense's CEO and Ransomware Negotiator, Kurtis Minder, about how ransomware attacks have doubled in the US because of the pandemic. Below is a translated transcript of the article. Watch the clip in the article to hear Kurtis talk about the topic. 

Note: Article and video clip linked is in Portuguese. 

CyberNews interviewed GroupSense's Director of Intelligence Operations, Bryce Webster-Jacobsen, about cyber attack landscape and its business impact. Below is a transcript of Bryce's interview with CyberNews.