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On June 2nd, Anne Neuberger, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technology sent a memo to Corporate Executives and Business Leaders regarding the threat of Ransomware.

“The number and size of ransom-ware incidents have increased significantly, and strengthening our nation’s resilience from cyberattacks – both private and public sector – is a top priority of the President’s,” the memo began, before outlining recommendations to mitigate risk.

Some New England vacationers may have run into a bit of a hitch trying to get to Martha’s Vineyard at the beginning of the month, as the largest ferry service to the island was the victim of a ransomware attack. The website of Steamship Authority, which operates out of Wood’s Hole, had been taken offline, prohibiting the ability to buy tickets for the ferry online.

The US Government had its hand forced last week as one of the major pipelines in the nation, the Colonial Pipeline, was the victim of the largest US oil company infrastructure cyber-attack ever. The pipeline, which carries “45% of the East Coast’s supply of diesel, petrol and jet fuel,” according to the BBC, is shut down indefinitely, causing gasoline prices to spike.

Uber announced in 2020 that it would become fully electric by 2040 in North America, which is why it’s not surprising that they have announced a partnership with Arrival, an electric vehicle manufacturer, to create a vehicle specifically for drivers of their platform.

If you are a customer of Eversource Energy, you might have gotten a notice recently about a data breach the energy company suffered which exposed the names, addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, service addresses, and account numbers of its customers.

If you were to predict what the greatest change in business would be in a post-2020 world what would you say? Sure, more people will likely be washing their hands, but in actuality, the shift to remote work fast-tracked the next industrial leap: Industry 4.0.

Before the pandemic, manufacturers were already moving towards smart technology applications, whether through robotics, autonomous vehicles, or Internet of Things (IoT) devices that tie them all together.

Ransomware attacks grew 485% in 2020 compared to 2019, according to Bitdefender’s recently-released “2020 Consumer Threat Landscape Report”

According to the report, “Since the world had to adapt to remote work, and staying at home became the new normal, threat actors have also updated their spam-sending tactics by focusing more on delivering seemingly legitimate emails, in an attempt to maximize their chances of infecting users.

Motor vehicle inspections in eight states were stalled after emissions testing company Applus+ Technologies suffered a malware attack which took state systems, including those in Massachusetts and Connecticut, offline.

According to Applus+, “On Tuesday, March 30, 2021, Applus detected and stopped a malware attack which temporarily interrupted the process of conducting vehicle inspections.

Are you waiting for a laptop? When’s the last time you were at COSTCO? Did you notice a lack of cheeses available? Believe it or not, these two things are related and part of the same issue that has come up over the past year.

In ports across the world, shipping containers are stuck waiting to be loaded up or have goods dropped off but are facing continuous bottlenecks.