Late Wednesday, the FBI confirms that group Ransomware evil and software Sodinokibi are responsible for for the latest large profile cybersecurity attack on international meat producer JBS foods. 

 

The company says the attacks impacted its operation s in North America and Australia. Regardless the company claims their food plants are operational with little evidence that customer, supplier, or employee data has been compromised.

 

The rise of cyber attacks has gotten the attention of federal authorities in recent years as foreign actors target American business. recently the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a division of the Department of Homeland Security announced that approximately 350 organizations have been targeted in spearphishing campaign targeting governments and the private sector.

We spoke with Mike Ritsema, an FBI vetted member of Infragrad, the nation’s long running national security partnerships, and president of i3 Business Solutions, who says cyber threats are a serious business and not just for big business players. 

“”A lot of small businesses say ‘they’re going after the Colonial’s, they’re going after big guys.’ Wrong, they’re going after you,'" says Ritsema, "85 percent of small businesses are targeted by the bad actors”

The 2020 internet crime report says an increase of 300-thousand complaints leading to over 4.2 billion dollars in losses to American business. 

The top three most common crimes on business: phishing scams, non payment or non delivery scams, and extortion. 

Ritsema says having a multi-layered security approach is key, but one of the most vulnerable what the industry calls the human firewall.

"The most vulnerable firewall we have are the people using the computers and that is the easiest person to target. It’s the individual behind the keyboard that can make a mistake and click on the wrong website or answer the phone call. Can you believe that the bad actors are calling for account changes and calling for 6 digit 2 factor authentication code on the phone people are handing it over," says Ritsema 

In some cases, victims of cyber attacks end up paying to release their files to ransomware. Ritsema recommends contacting your internet security provider, expert firms like i3 Business Solutions, and contacting the appropriate authorities. The FBI says one attack is an attack on us all and ask that you notify them  if you are a victim of cyber attacks. 

 

I’m alfredo cuadros reporting for newsnet.