The cyber-avengers protecting hospitals from ransomware

PLUS: how the pandemic impacts long-distance families, and why testing won't save us from Covid-19. View this email in your browser  |  Manage newsletter subscriptions 10.04.20 Everyone knows we're in the middle of the worst pandemic in a century, and that many hospitals worldwide are stretched to the limit. But, this being 2020, there's another scourge straining those facilities—a cyber-pandemic of ransomware attacks. As Sonner Kehrt writes this week on Backchannel, medical networks around the world are being invaded by hackers, who lock down files and demand payment to restore access. Israeli cyber intelligence researcher Ohad Zaidenberg was used to seeing these kinds of attacks as part of his job, but in March he realized that now the consequences could be fatal. Israel was in the process of locking down, and he knew he would soon have a lot of time on his hands. He also knew his skills could help prevent attacks on medical facilities. After all, he was already monitoring virus-related threats for work. What if there were a way to scale that up globally, a way to alert hospitals—any hospital, anywhere—that they might be vulnerable, before an attack happened? Zaidenberg pinged a Microsoft security manager named Nate Warfield who'd been tweeting about the same thing, and the Cyber Threat Intelligence League was born. Zaidenberg and Warfield, along with Okta cybersecurity expert Marc Rogers and others, quickly worked their connections to build the organization into a thousands-strong global team of volunteer cyber-avengers focused on protecting medical facilities. Within the first month alone, they'd found more than 2,000 health care software vulnerabilities in 80 countries, identified nearly 400 malicious files that were unlikely to be stopped by common antivirus software, and flagged almost 3,000 web domains for takedown. The CTI League might be fighting battles in the digital realm, but the lives they could be saving are very real. Jon J. Eilenberg | Articles Editor, WIRED   BACKCHANNEL The Cyber-Avengers Protecting Hospitals From Ransomware BY SONNER KEHRT As medical facilities strain amid the pandemic, they're especially vulnerable to cyberattacks. A global coalition of volunteer experts has stepped into the breach.   BACKCHANNEL The Pandemic Closed Borders—and Stirred a Longing for Home BY ELISABETH EAVES The dispersed modern family depends on easy travel. Now that it's much harder, the question becomes: How long is too long to not see a parent?   IDEAS Testing Won't Save Us From Covid-19 BY CHRISTIE ASCHWANDEN Many experts are convinced that fast and easy screening can stop the virus. But that theory fails to account for the messiness of real life.   RUSSIA PROBE An Insider's Look at How the Mueller Investigation Fell Flat BY GARRETT M. GRAFF Prosecutor Andrew Weissmann's Where Law Ends doesn't fill the hole at the center of the Trump-Russia probe, but does help explain why it's there.   OPINION America Can Still Achieve Its Techno-Utopian Dream BY BARRY LYNN The tools for curbing Silicon Valley's outsize power and restoring hope in tech are already available and, in some cases, have been for hundreds of years.   SPONSORED CONTENT Get a Free Security Camera And 24/7 Protection Most security companies send a technician to your home. SimpliSafe doesn't. Order online. Set it up in 30 minutes. After that you're protected 24/7.     This e-mail was sent to you by WIRED. To ensure delivery to your inbox (not bulk or junk folders), please add our e-mail address, wired@newsletters.wired.com, to your address book.   View our Privacy Policy Unsubscribe or manage your newsletter subscriptions