There are several trends emerging in the cyber insurance industry that are worrying for mid-size and local entities. These trends are largely a response to the havoc ransomware has caused across industries in the last 18 months. The emerging trends can be summed up as: Prices are increasing, in many cases in the range of 2x-4x Renewal and acceptance rates for policies are going down, in many cases, by 40%-60% compared to previous years Entities...

A recent breach affecting 37,636 individuals has been attributed to a terminated company executive. The information in the file included name, age, sex, race, county and state of residence, and zip code, as well as Medicare beneficiary information, such as Medicare eligibility period, spend information, and hierarchical condition category risk score. This breach highlights some of the top security and privacy challenges covered entities and...

Law enforcement and intelligence agencies in the U.S, the U.K. and Australia have issued a joint advisory on unidentified Iran government-backed advanced persistent threat (APT) actors exploiting Fortinet and Microsoft Exchange ProxyShell vulnerabilities to attack organizations in their respective countries. Attributing the attacks to a specific APT group is inherently challenging, but a senior cyber threat intelligence analyst has pointed out...

The FBI has issued a warning about Hive ransomware after the crime group took down IT systems at Memorial Health System in Ohio The alert details indicators of compromise and tactics, techniques and procedures—or TTPs—associated with ransomware attacks by the apparent ransomware-as-a-service operation. The full release can be found here:  https://www.ic3.gov/Media/News/2021/210825.pdf In addition to the details of the attack, the FBI has issued...

ENE Systems hack said to affect 3 Boston Hospitals   A hacking incident that reportedly targeted a Massachusetts-based ENE Systems that provides HVAC systems to several Boston-area hospitals and others shines a spotlight on the growing cybersecurity risks involving IoT devices and OT equipment.   Call to Action Perhaps the most high-profile incident involving an HVAC hack was the 2013 Target breach. It resulted in 41 million...

Ransomware Attacks, Vendor Incidents Continue to Dominate So far in 2021, some 383 health data breaches affecting more than 27 million individuals have been added to the HHS wall of shame. That includes 131 breaches affecting nearly 10 million since the end of May. Of the 2021 breaches, the vast majority — 283 breaches affecting 26.1 million individuals — were reported as involving hacking/IT incidents. Largest Breaches of 2021 Florida Healthy...

Over the last week, more than a thousand companies, many of them small businesses, were dealing with the fallout from the Kaseya mass ransomware incident. In the wake of the devastating compromise of Kaseya’s popular IT management tool, researchers and security professionals are warning that the debacle isn’t a one-off event but part of a larger trend. Hackers are increasingly targeting the entire class of tools that administrators...

Complaint Alleged Multiple Security ‘Failures’ Leading to 2020 Cyberattack A federal court has approved a proposed settlement in a class-action lawsuit filed in February against Nebraska Medicine. This is in the wake of a 2020 malware attack and exfiltration of sensitive personal data and medical records of tens of thousands of individuals. The costs of the proposed settlement could exceed $37 million in patient reimbursements.  Out...

Criminals targeting business people with malware-laden documents SolarMarker backdoor malware operators are using “SEO poisoning” techniques to deploy the remote access Trojan to steal sensitive information, Microsoft reports. SEO poisoning attacks use PDFs stuffed with links to malware that is used to steal data and credentials from browsers. Attack Analysis In April, cybersecurity firm eSentire found that hackers had flooded the...

Oil pipelines and Apple among most recent targets Seemingly every week, there’s a new disruption caused by ransomware. Some of them are more noteworthy than others, with the recent pipeline disruption getting the most coverage followed by a $50M ransom demanded from Apple a few weeks ago. It’s all part of a trend of escalating criminal activity centered around ransomware. Trends While the high-profile demands and disruptions are generating...

Phishing continues to be one of the most prominent, and damaging, ways that cybercriminals gain access to healthcare networks. It is also one of the most straightforward threats for an organization to deal with. Unlike a number of more technical cybercrimes, phishing can be prevented with simple training. Employees who have received training in spotting and reporting phishing emails dramatically reduce the risk that malware and ransomware will...

159 Major Breaches in 2021 About 70 major health data breaches have been added to the federal tally in the last four weeks as ransomware attacks have persisted and breaches at vendors have affected clients. As of Monday, the Department of Health and Human Services’ HIPAA Breach Reporting Tool website showed 159 breaches affecting a combined total of 12.5 million individuals have been added to the tally so far this year. That’s up...

The Treasury Department’s OCC, Federal Reserve Board and the FDIC are proposing rule changes that would dramatically increase the reporting requirements for banks that experience a “computer security incident”. While the time for public comment has passed and the rule changes are not final yet, here is the sum-mary of what is being proposed. “The OCC, Board, and FDIC (together, the agencies) invite comment on a notice of proposed rule-making...

With people working from home and many companies planning on making some level of remote work permanent, it’s important for banks and other data-heavy industries to reconsider how their network security is implemented. That’s where Zero Trust comes in. Zero Trust has become one of cybersecurity’s latest buzzwords. But it’s not just a buzzword. For industries where security is of paramount importance, it’s imperative to understand what Zero...

A ransomware gang has hit a Seattle-based billing and payment processing provider. This highlights how criminals are both attacking businesses and also stealing and selling valuable personal information, regardless of whether or not the ransom is paid. Gangs are increasingly targeting service businesses with access to customers’ financial information. The ‘Cuba’ ransomware gang has taken credit for the hit against Automatic...

Business Associate Breaches Affect Millions Nearly 1/3 of the major health data breaches added to the federal tally so far this year involve business associates, continuing a trend in recent years. A recent analysis by CI Security found that in the second half of 2020, nearly 75% of all records breached were tied to security incidents involving business associates. Currently, the HHS OCR website shows that 37 major breaches, affecting more than...

  Bureau and Security Experts Warn About Gang’s Effective Extortion Model   The FBI issued a warning this week over the growing threat from the operators behind the Egregor ransomware variant and other cybercriminal gangs affiliated with the group. Since September, the Egregor gang and its affiliates claim to have compromised approximately 150 corporate networks in the U.S. and other countries. In some cases, the extortion...

New Egregor ransomware has been gaining traction since emerging in September. A new form of ransomware is becoming increasingly prolific as cybercriminals turn to it as a preferred means of encrypting vulnerable networks in an effort to exploit bitcoin from victims. Egregor ransomware first emerged in September but has already become notorious following several high-profile incidents, including attacks against Barnes & Noble and video game...