After Surge in 2nd Half, 1,802 Breach Notifications Issued in 2022; Over 440 Million Individuals Affected After a slow start, likely due to geopolitical factors, 2022 was another bumper year for data breaches in the United States. U.S. organizations issued 1,802 data breach notifications in 2022, affecting more than 400 million individuals, the Identity Theft Resource Center reports. That figure is just 60 breaches shy of the 1,862 breaches in...

Bad news for ransomware groups: Experts find that getting a payday is harder as the world fortifies against the onslaught of criminal malware. The good news is that more would-be victims are getting robust defenses in place, including well-rehearsed incident response plans, which make executing a successful attack harder. Also good news, law enforcement agencies mobilize earlier to assist victims, and by doing so, they’re learning better...

Both Ransomware Groups Pose Serious Concerns to Sector, Warns HHS HC3 The U.S. government is warning that Healthcare entities should be on high alert for signs of the new BlackCat and Royal ransomware-as-a-service groups. On January 12th, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center issued a threat brief that warns that BlackCat conducts triple extortion, meaning it doesn’t just...

Trojan Impersonates More Than 400 Financial and Crypto Exchange Apps The Godfather banking Trojan is causing serious issues in the financial sector due to its ability to mimic the appearance of more than 400 applications, including leading financial and crypto exchange applications. So far, it has targeted institutions in 16 countries. Research from security intelligence firm Group-IB says the Godfather Trojan reappeared in September with...

The number of successful ransomware attacks has doubled in the last 4 years. But there are concrete steps a healthcare organization can take to avoid costly — and potentially deadly — downtime and better protect themselves against an attack. 1. Move from on-premises servers and backups to the cloud. Doing so outsources availability, uptime, and security to the SaaS vendor and also facilitates better backup and recovery if something does happen....

QBot Backdoor Opens Systems to Loading Cobalt Strike, Ransomware and Other Malware Researchers say the Black Basta group is dropping QBot malware — also called QakBot — in a widespread ransomware campaign targeting mostly U.S.-based companies. QBot malware is a banking Trojan primarily designed to steal banking data, including browser information, keystrokes and credentials. Its previous targets include JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Bank of...

Targeting of Providers, Plans and Partners Since 2009, healthcare breaches have affected the personal information of 370 million people. Quick math says that’s more than the entire U.S. population, and that’s only counting the major breaches affecting 500 people or more. The situation is growing worse. In just the last three years, the volume and frequency of breaches have nearly doubled, from 368 in 2018 to 715 in 2021. And the nation is on...

Red-Teaming Tool Poses Ongoing Risks When Used by Hackers, HHS Warns The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Information Security’s HC3 unit says attackers are weaponizing legitimate security tools. Russian hackers deployed Cobalt Strike’s command-and-control function during their attack against SolarWinds’ network management software. Hackers who earlier this year got into Cisco corporate IT...

Cyberweapon-Grade Hacking Tools Pose Danger for Financial Sector Cyberthieves traditionally on the lower rung of hacking abilities now have access to nation-state-class malicious software, warn close observers of the criminal dark web. The appearance on criminal forums of tools capable of infecting a computer’s boot firmware or malware that evades antivirus detection is a consequence of years of state-sponsored development of cyber...

Use of Social Engineering, Phishing to Divert Payments Cybercriminals are stealing multimillion-dollar payouts from healthcare payment processors by compromising user login credentials, the FBI warns the healthcare industry. In a recent alert, federal agents say they’ve received multiple reports of cybercriminals redirecting healthcare payments into their pockets. According to the FBI, cybercriminals used employees’ publicly...

$155 Million in fines and settlements. While physical data breaches have declined substantially in the last 10 years, they still can happen without proper diligence. That lack of diligence and vendor oversight has led to a $35M fine for Morgan Stanley from the SEC and a class-action settlement of $60M over the same breach. This is in addition to a $60M fine from the Comptroller of the Currency in 2020. All for improperly decommissioning server...

Some 60 breaches affecting about 2.5 million individuals were added in July to the federal tally of major health data breaches. Those incidents continued a trend playing out in 2022: Large hacking incidents predominately involving ransomware attacks against providers, vendors, or both are responsible for an overwhelming amount of data theft. About 80% of the major breaches reported were related to hacking/IT incidents, and these breaches...

AWS Domains Used to Send Phishing Emails and Steal Credentials Cybercriminals are using Amazon Web Services to create phishing pages that bypass security scanners and scam victims into handing over credentials. The scammers send targets what appears to be a standard password expiration email or other emails meant to create a sense of urgency. The emails come from legitimate AWS domains, but a closer look shows the inclusion of false nicknames,...

New draft of federal cybersecurity guidance could help healthcare organizations avoid regulatory fines in the wake of breaches. Federal regulators are looking for the adoption of “recognized security practices,” when investigating the aftermath of a breach involving protected health information. In 2021, Congress told the Department of Health and Human Services to consider whether a medical center or business associate can show that it...

Cybersecurity, or the lack of it, is something that we all need to be concerned about. In no industry is that more readily apparent than the financial sector. As the threats continue to evolve, it’s important that we don’t forget about older threats that continue to pose serious risks to financial institutions. Ideally, all organizations would rapidly expunge known vulnerabilities from their networks, starting with the most severe bugs that...

Depending on where you put its tracking pixel, it might be. Lawsuit: Facebook Is Collecting Patient Data of ‘Millions’ Class Action Alleges Meta Pixel Code Tracks Websites, Patient Portal Interactions A class action is alleging Facebook unlawfully collects patient data from the online portals of hundreds of medical providers without knowledge or consent. The lawsuit, filed Friday (June 17, 2022) by an anonymous “John...

Canada’s Desjardins Settles Data Breach Lawsuit for $155M Highlights the risks posed by insider threats and lack of information segmentation. The cost of the settlement adds on to the costs the bank has already carried resolving the breach they discovered in 2019. The breach, which was publicly disclosed in June 2019, involved a “malicious” insider stealing and selling personal details for 4.2 million active customers of the...

Why that might not be a good thing for Nebraska. Based on a study of thousands of cases that it has worked, incident response firm Coveware has found that the number of firms paying a ransom has dropped from 85% in Q1 2019 to 46% in Q1 2022. When victims do pay a ransom, in Q1 2022, they paid an average of $211,529, down 34% from the previous quarter, Coveware found. It attributes this to fewer victims paying, attackers overall infecting...

Authorities Warn Healthcare, Public Health Sectors of Latest Concerns Federal authorities are warning the healthcare sector of potential threats involving Lapsus$, including those related to the extortion group’s recent hack of identity management vendor Okta. The Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center, or HC3, in an advisory issued on April 7, warns of attack threats to the sector...

Declining Loss Ratios May Allow Insurance Premium Increases to Moderate in Late 2022 An improvement in loss ratios for cyber insurance providers in 2021 means the rapid rise in premiums might, at last, subside later this year. The loss ratio, simply insurer payouts versus premiums earned, declined for the first time since 2018 despite the frequency and severity of claims filed for cyberattacks increasing yet again in 2021. The improvement was...