Las Vegas and its suburbs form the no. 1 U.S. metropolitan region for ransomware attacks, a December report by Malwarebytes, an advanced malware prevention company, shows.
Malwarebytes reviewed hundreds of thousands of ransomware incidents across 200 countries. The report showed the Las Vegas/Henderson area leading in overall ransomware detections, most detections per individual machine and most detections per population.
“The metropolitan Las Vegas area experienced more than 300 times more detections than Fort Wayne, Indiana, No. 10 on the list, and had 500 times the average detection levels of the 40 cities with the most most ransomware,” according to the report.
Las Vegas was trailed by No. 2 Memphis, Tennessee. In descending order, the list continued with Stockton, California; Detroit; Toledo, Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio; Buffalo, New York; San Antonio; and Fort Wayne.
The United States had the most attacks of the 200 countries analyzed — accounting for 26 percent of global attacks measured in the sample.
The United States was 200 percent higher on ransomware attacks than Germany — the country with the second-highest number of attacks.
“The results of our research shows that cybercriminal gangs have already saturated both the rural and urban U.S. populace with ransomware, yet they are constantly improving their tactics, execution and business model to evade detection by current solutions,” said Adam Kujawa, Malwarebytes’ head of malware intelligence.
The study was conducted over a three-month period, from July to October 2016.
Mountains Edge Marketplace signs new tenants
The Mountains Edge Marketplace, a large-scale retail center under construction at Blue Diamond Road and Buffalo Drive, is poised to add tenants.
The 250,000-square-foot project will add The Bar, Burger King and T-Mobile in coming months. The new tenants will occupy nearly 11,000 square feet of space. Before these additions, the center, owned by Las Vegas-based Remington Nevada, was about 50 percent leased.
The project’s grocery anchor, Albertsons, will open in the first quarter of 2017. By the end of next year, about 167,000 square feet of the project will be completed or under construction.
Nevada nonprofits join forces
Nevada Medical Center and Nevada Action Coalition issued a statement saying they have joined forces to improve access to nursing and health care in the state.
“It is the mission of the Nevada Medical Center to improve the health of Nevadans and Nevada’s health care system by promoting and supporting collaboration and cooperation in the medical community and establishing performance metrics and health indicators to identify priorities and measure community success,” said Nevada Medical Center Executive Director Larry Matheis.
“This partnership with the Nevada Action Coalition and the Nevada nursing community represents a major step toward accomplishing that mission.”
