The LockBit ransomware group formally apologized for the attack on the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and gave to the victim a decryptor for free.

The LockBit ransomware gang formally apologized for the attack on the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and has released a free decryptor for the Hospital.

The group is known to have a role for its affiliated that prohibits attacking healthcare organizations. Its policy forbids to encrypt systems of organizations where damage could lead to the death of individuals.

The gang explained that one of its partners has attacked SickKids violating its rules, for this reason it block the affiliate.

“We formally apologize for the attack on sikkids.ca and give back the decryptor for free, the partner who attacked this hospital violated our rules, is blocked and is no longer in our affiliate program.” reads the message published by Lockbit on its Tor leak site.

BleepingComputer confirmed that the decryptor released by the group claims to be a Linux/VMware ESXi decryptor.

The attack against the Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children took place on December 18, 2022. The hospital is the Canadian largest pediatric health center, it is located on University Avenue in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

The attack impacted multiple network systems at the hospital, but according to the healthcare organization, it did not impact the patient care. 

“The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) is currently responding to a cybersecurity incident affecting several network systems and has called a Code Grey – system failure. The code went into effect at 9:30 p.m. on Sunday, December 18, and is ongoing.” reads the incident notice published by the Hospital.

“The safety and well-being of our patients and their families is our top priority. All patient care is continuing and there is currently no evidence that personal information or personal health information has been impacted.”

The hospital took several days to contain the ransomware attack.

“The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) has successfully restored many systems that were impacted by the cybersecurity incident on December 18.” reads an update published by SickKids. “As of December 29, almost 50 per cent of priority systems are now restored and back online, including many of the systems that would have contributed to diagnostic and/or treatment delays. Patients and families should still be prepared for potential delays as work continues to bring all systems back online.”

On December 23, the hospital revealed that it would take weeks to fully restore its IT infrastructure.

Affiliates of the Lockbit gang have already hit healthcare organizations in the past, in early December, the Hospital Centre of Versailles was hit by a cyber attack that was attributed to the group. Hospital Centre of Versailles, which includes Andre-Mignot Hospital, Richaud Hospital and the Despagne Retirement Home, canceled operations and transferred some patients due to the cyberattack.

In August, the gang attacked the Center Hospitalier Sud Francilien (CHSF), a hospital southeast of Paris. The attack disrupted the emergency services and surgeries and forced the hospital to refer patients to other structures. According to local media, threat actors demand a $10 million ransom to provide the decryption key to restore encrypted data.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Lockbit)

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This photo provided by Monroe County (Pa.) Correctional Facility shows Bryan Kohberger.

Monroe County (Pa.) Correctional Facility via Associated Press

• Idaho killing suspect Bryan Kohberger was arrested in connection with the four students’ murders Friday. 
• Kohberger allegedly tracked the victims’ phones before the killings, a source told the Daily Mail. 
• A local brewery owner told NBC that Kohberger was known to be “creepy,” to female employees.

More details have emerged about possible links between the suspect in the murder of four Idaho college students and his alleged victims. 

Bryan Kohberger, 28, who is currently in a Pennsylvania jail, was arrested Friday on first-degree murder charges in the deaths of four University of Idaho students, and one count of burglary. Ethan Chapin, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, were found dead in their home over a month ago by two other roommates, who police said likely slept through the killing. 

The Washington State University criminal justice graduate student, who lives just miles from the crime scene, was connected to the killings through DNA and his car, officials told CNN. 

But some connected to Kohberger, a Pennsylvania native, claimed he has a history of lashing out at women, followed the victims before the killings, and was careful to avoid police after the murders, according to reports in the New York Post, the Daily Mail and NBC this weekend. 

A source who is a cousin of one of Kohberger’s childhood schoolmates, the Daily Mail reported, said the suspect allegedly tracked the four victims’ phones for weeks before the killing. Police have not confirmed the detail.

After the killings, Kohberger traveled back to Pennsylvania, where he was staying at his parents’ home.  A Pennsylvania police officer was among those who followed Kohberger leading up to the arrest, the source told the Mail, and observed that Kohberger wore gloves each time he went to the local supermarket in a possible attempt to avoid getting caught. 

He also allegedly was “creepy” toward women before, Jordan Serulneck, who knows the suspect told NBC. Kohberger was a patron at Serulneck’s brewery, Seven Sirens Brewing Company, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, not far from DeSales University, where Kohberger got a master’s last year. 

Kohberger was flagged as problematic at Seven Sirens after female employees and customers repeatedly complained that he was harassing them. He allegedly asked them where they lived and who they were there with, then would get angry when they did not respond, Serulneck told NBC. 

Kohberger also once called one of the employees a bitch for not answering him, Serulneck said.

When he was a master’s student at DeSales, he reportedly researched the emotions of individuals committing crimes. Criminologist Casey Jordan told CNN that it seems Kohberger was simply “obsessed with crime.” 

“From the outset, we had to understand this was an organized killer,” she told the network. 

(NewsNation) — The family of the alleged Idaho killer Bryan Kohberger is urging the public to accept his presumption of innocence, according to a statement obtained by NewsNation on Sunday.

In the statement, Jason Allen LaBar, chief public defender and counsel for Kohberger says the family has “fully cooperated with law enforcement agencies in an attempt to seek the truth and promote his presumption of innocence rather than judge unknown facts and make erroneous assumptions.”

Also in the statement, the family expresses interest in letting the legal process unfold saying, “as a family we will love and support our son and brother.”

The statement also addresses the deaths of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin.

“First and foremost we care deeply for the four families who have lost their precious children,” it reads. “There are no words that can adequately express the sadness we feel, and we pray each day for them.”

The family also asked for privacy, saying in the statement, “as our family and the families suffering loss can move forward through the legal process.”

A classmate who knew Kohberger’s told NewsNation that his behavior changed noticeably in the days after the deaths of the four college students.

In an exclusive, 22-minute interview with NewsNation, graduate student Benjamin Roberts said he remembered Kohberger as typically being stressed and exhausted.

The full interview with classmate Benjamin Roberts will air tonight on NewsNation Prime at 6 p.m. Central/7 p.m. Eastern. Find NewsNation on your cable or satellite provider by using our Channel Finder.

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Private vehicles started crossing between Colombia and Venezuela for the first time in years on Sunday, marking the total opening of the shared border, in addition to cargo and people that have been transiting.

The full opening of the common border follows years of tense relations between the two countries that have eased after Colombian President Gustavo Petro, a leftist, took office in August last year.

German Umana, Colombia’s commerce minister, told reporters at the crossing that the move would be positive for the economies and societies of both countries.

“We will never allow it again,” Umana said in reference to closure of the border.

Late last year, Colombian and Venezuelan authorities authorized the opening of the crossing on the Atanasio Girardot bridge, known as Tienditas, the western Venezuelan border state Tachira state.

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Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was sworn in as Brazil’s president on Sunday, delivering a searing indictment of far-right former leader Jair Bolsonaro and vowing a drastic change of course to rescue what he called a ruined nation.

In a speech to Congress after officially taking the reins of Latin America’s biggest country, the leftist said democracy was the true winner of the October presidential vote, when he ousted Bolsonaro in the most fraught election for a generation.

Bolsonaro, who left Brazil for the United States on Friday after refusing to concede defeat, rattled the cages of Brazil’s young democracy with baseless claims of electoral weaknesses that birthed a violent movement of election deniers.

“Democracy was the great victor in this election, overcoming … the most violent threats to freedom to vote, and the most abject campaign of lies and hate plotted to manipulate and embarrass the electorate,” Lula told lawmakers.

He delivered a veiled threat to Bolsonaro, who faces mounting legal risks for his anti-democratic rhetoric and his handling of the pandemic now that he no longer has presidential immunity.

“We do not carry any spirit of revenge against those who tried to subjugate the nation to their personal and ideological designs, but we will guarantee the rule of law,” Lula said, without mentioning his predecessor by name. “Those who erred will answer for their errors.”

He also accused Bolsonaro’s administration of committing “genocide” by failing to respond properly to the COVID-19 virus that killed more than 680,000 Brazilians.

“The responsibilities for this genocide must be investigated and must not go unpunished,” he said.

Lula’s plans for government provided a stark contrast to Bolsonaro’s four years in office, which were characterized by backsliding on environmental protections in the Amazon rainforest, looser gun laws and weaker protections for indigenous peoples and minorities.

Lula said he wants to turn Brazil, one of the world’s top food producers, into a green superpower. He reinforced his commitment to ending deforestation in the Amazon, which surged to a 15-year high under Bolsonaro, while also enlisting its indigenous inhabitants to help protect the forest.

He said he will revoke dozens of Bolsonaro’s executive orders loosening firearms laws, which prompted a sharp rise in gun ownership.

“Brazil does not want more weapons, it wants peace and security for its people,” he said.

Lula’s inauguration took place amid heightened security.

Some of Bolsonaro’s supporters have protested that the election was stolen and called for a military coup to stop Lula returning to office in a climate of vandalism and violence.

On Christmas Eve, a Bolsonaro supporter was arrested for making a bomb that was discovered on a truck laden with aviation fuel at the entrance to Brasilia airport, and confessed he was seeking to sow chaos to provoke a military intervention.

Bolsonaro has seen his support among many former allies evaporate due to the anti-democratic protests.

On Saturday night, then-acting President Hamilton Mourao, who was Bolsonaro’s vice president, criticized his former boss in a thinly veiled dig for allowing anti-democratic sentiment to thrive after his defeat at the polls.

“Leaders who were supposed to reassure and unite the nation … allowed silence or inopportune and deleterious protagonism to create an atmosphere of chaos and social disintegration,” Mourao said in a speech late on Saturday.

After the swearing-in, Lula left Congress in an open-top Rolls-Royce. He then arrived at the Planalto palace, where he walked up its ramp with a diverse group that included his wife, Chief Raoni Metuktire of the Kayapó tribe, a young Black boy and a disabled man. Lula was then handed the presidential sash – a hugely symbolic act in Brazil that Bolsonaro had repeatedly said he would never do – by a Black woman.

Tens of thousands who had gathered to celebrate on Brasilia’s esplanade cheered as Lula wiped away tears.

Lula’s election victory marked a stunning political comeback, winning an unprecedented third presidential term after a hiatus that saw him spend a year and a half behind bars on corruption convictions that were later overturned.

His 580 days in prison reinforced his sense of social justice and convinced him of the need to prioritize ending poverty over boosting profits, allies said. read more

In his previous years as Workers Party (PT) president from 2003-2010, the former union leader lifted millions of Brazilians from poverty during a commodity boom that buoyed the economy.

Now, he faces the daunting challenge of improving Brazil’s stagnant economy while also uniting a country that has become painfully polarized under Bolsonaro.

“A lot is expected of Lula. He’ll have the difficult mission to restore normality and predictability in Brazil, and above all to rapidly deliver results that improve the quality of life for its inhabitants,” said Creomar de Souza, director of Dharma Political Risk consultancy in Brasilia.

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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with incoming Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang over the phone on Sunday, Blinken said on Twitter, after China last week appointed its ambassador to the United States to be its new foreign minister.

Blinken said he discussed the U.S.-China relationship and maintaining open lines of communication in his phone call with Qin.

China on Friday appointed Qin, its ambassador to the United States and a trusted aide of President Xi Jinping, to be its new foreign minister, as Beijing and Washington seek to stabilize rocky relations.

Qin, 56, replaces Wang Yi, who had been foreign minister for the past decade. Wang, 69, was promoted to the politburo of the Chinese Communist Party in October and is expected to play a bigger role in Chinese foreign policy.

Though Qin sounded optimistic about U.S.-China relations during his relatively brief, 17-month stint as ambassador in Washington – his predecessor had held the post for eight years – his tenure nonetheless coincided with deteriorating ties between the two superpowers.

Wang’s stint as foreign minister saw a sharp rise in tensions between Beijing and Washington on a wide range of issues ranging from trade to Taiwan.

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