From InfoWorld: With ransomware attacks on the rise, most of the focus is on the importance of a robust backup strategy and whether or not to pay the ransom. But this is also a good time to double down on the security basics since having a proper patch management strategy can make a difference.
Over the past few months, several popular exploit kits have incorporated ransomware into their attacks. These kits rely heavily on vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight to deliver ransomware such as Cryptowall, AlphaCrypt, and TeslaCrypt, according to a recent Recorded Future analysis. The researchers found that three recently patched flaws in Flash and one in Silverlight are “key in-roads” for Angler, Neutrino, and Nuclear exploit kits to infect victims with ransomware.
“Patching recent vulnerabilities can significantly blunt the impact of ransomware delivered by exploit kits,” wrote Recorded Future's Scott Donnelly.
Recorded Future found that Angler began targeting a remote code execution flaw in Silverlight (CVE-2016-0034) to drop TeslaCrypt on user systems back in February. Microsoft patched the critical Silverlight vulnerability as part of its January security release, and at the time noted it was under “limited attack.” It took only a few weeks for the flaw to be added to Angler and used in broader attacks.
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