Renee Dudley

Five months before DarkSide attacked the Colonial pipeline, two researchers discovered a way to rescue its ransomware victims. Then an antivirus company’s announcement alerted the hackers.

The Russia-linked ransomware gang Conti avoided the sanctions that hit Russian banks and businesses after the invasion of Ukraine, spotlighting the difficulty of reining in cybercriminals. Meanwhile, confused victims face uncertainty.

Highly educated autistic people have long found work in tech — but now two Dutch entrepreneurs are training socially isolated autistic dropouts and finding productive jobs for them. The approach could be a model for America.

In this excerpt from “The Ransomware Hunting Team: A Band of Misfits’ Improbable Crusade to Save the World From Cybercrime,” the authors reveal how unprepared the nation’s top federal law enforcement agency was to combat online crime.

Recent cyberattacks in the U.S. might have been detected sooner if infected computers had logging software, a feature in premium Microsoft licenses. Former National Cyber Director Chris Inglis says this type of security should already be built in.

The criticism from members of the House Homeland Security Committee came in response to a ProPublica investigation that found Microsoft repeatedly rebuffed an engineer’s warnings that a product flaw had left millions of users vulnerable to attack.

Former employee says software giant dismissed his warnings about a critical flaw because it feared losing government business. Russian hackers later used the weakness to breach the National Nuclear Security Administration, among others.

When the White House welcomed Microsoft’s offer of $150 million in tech services, it helped the world’s largest software provider tighten its grip on federal business and freeze out competitors.

The Federal Trade Commission has demanded information from Microsoft and interviewed competitors as the agency’s antitrust investigation heats up. The probe follows ProPublica reporting on how the company skirted and potentially violated federal law.

The executive order follows a ProPublica investigation that found Microsoft prioritized profit over security, leaving the federal government vulnerable to the largest hack in U.S. history. Vendors must now demonstrate that their products are secure.