The White House welcomes officials from 36 countries, the EU, and private companies for a two-day summit on ransomware attacks, the second such event (Associated Press)

Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Europol says it has arrested Russian national in Canada linked to LockBit ransomware attacks on critical infrastructure organizations and high-profile companies  —  Europol has announced today the arrest of a Russian national linked to LockBit ransomware attacks targeting critical infrastructure organizations …

Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Q&A with the CEO of Clearwater Compliance, a health care-focused cybersecurity firm, on HIPAA, ransomware attacks, medical IoT device vulnerabilities, and more  —  Ransomware attacks still plague our healthcare system.  Steve Cagle’s cybersecurity company is trying to prevent them.

Chelsey Cox / CNBC:
FinCEN: US financial institutions processed ~$1.2B in likely ransomware payments in 2021, up ~3x YoY; ~75% of ransomware incidents in H2 2021 were Russia-linked  —  – U.S. banks and financial institutions processed more than $1 billion in potential ransomware-related payments in 2021.

Meridith Levinson / Cybersecurity Software:
Survey of 1,203 cybersecurity professionals: 33%+ said their organization lost more money from holiday or weekend ransomware attacks, up from 13% in 2021  —  As the holidays approach, security leaders wanting to give their teams some much deserved extra time off may get caught in a bind.

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: ByteDance plans to expand its Resso music streaming service globally, starting with over a dozen markets excluding the US, and integrate it into TikTok  —  Company is negotiating with labels as it seeks more than a dozen new global markets  —  TikTok parent ByteDance Ltd …

For the past two years, ransomware attacks have been on the rise in K–12, and districts are struggling to keep up. Ransomware can be debilitating to districts and can impact the availability of services to educate students. Ransomware encrypts targeted systems, rendering files and applications useless. Having encrypted a district’s data, cybercriminals demand a ransom to decrypt the files. In the past, that would have been the end of the attack. The school could choose to pay and retrieve the data or not.
Now, K–12 institutions have better backup and recovery mechanisms in place. It takes…