Media Coverage

Data stolen from the targets might also have been shared with others in Russia, if that is where the hacker is working, for his own protection, said Tom Kellermann, chief cybersecurity officer for Trend Micro Inc. "This is not over," Kellermann said. "The real question now is how many backdoors are still in these systems that have yet to be detected."

"This iteration of ransomware targeting Linux servers is an escalation," said Paul Ferguson, a senior threat research advisor at Trend Micro.

The media processing layer is prone to vulnerabilities and attacks, said Trend Micro’s Christopher Budd. The operating system takes the data from Web services and executes it as a lower-level process, and handling the shift correctly can be tricky. It is easy to introduce mistakes in this layer.

But Tom Kellermann, chief cybersecurity officer at the security firm Trend Micro, says the timing of the announcement makes sense, given the Angler and Nuclear zero-day malware exploit kits now in widespread use. "I was at the [Oct. 25-28] FS-ISAC Fall Summit, and I think the presentations woke up regulators," he says.

The security flaw was discovered in mid-October, when it was found being exploited by the Russia-linked Pawn Storm threat group in attacks aimed at Foreign Affairs Ministries. The vulnerability affects all Flash releases up to version 19.0.0.226 for Mac and Windows, and Flash Player 11.2.202.540 for Linux, and was discovered by researchers at Trend Micro.