Financial fraud remains the leading driver of cyber insurance claims. 83% of cases are traced back to email-based attacks. While most of the common tactics used to deceive employees have remained the same, including wiring funds to fraudulent accounts, executive and vendor impersonation and business email compromise scams, generative AI-crafted emails are on the rise as a threat. These findings reflect broad fraud trends. According to the...

There are a number of trends that impact IT security that accelerated through 2024 and are promising to grow as threats in 2025. Some of these trends are enabled or accelerated by emerging technologies like widespread AI and others are so old that their recent uptick is surprising.   AI-enabled Scams/Social Engineering The rise of AI-enabled scams and fraud is predictable, in many cases just creating a more believable layer to classic...

HHS OIG: Current Audit Program Is Not Pushing Entities Enough to Improve Cyber The Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General just finished a report making a series of suggestions to the Office for Civil Rights regarding the focus and implementation of HIPAA audits in the near future. The audit program has been dormant since 2020, but the HHS is restarting the program and toughening the scope of its audits. The HHS...

Advisory Warns of Iranian Threat Actors Iranian cyber actors are using brute force techniques like password spraying and multifactor authentication “push bombing” to attack global critical infrastructure sectors, according to a recent joint advisory. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency published a cybersecurity advisory with the FBI, NSA and cyber authorities in Canada and Australia warning of an increasing threat...

What do you do when a service or platform that your organization relies on goes down? The recent chaos caused by problems with CDK and Crowdstrike highlights the need to be mindful of risks caused by 3rd party vendors. It’s also a reminder as to why having a contingency plan in place before an outage or attack occurs is key to any organization’s response. Both issues stemmed from different root causes. In CDK’s case, a ransomware attack left...

Microsoft announced in December that Windows 10 will reach end of support in October 2025. Those who rely on the operating system will no longer receive essential security updates, bug fixes or technical support unless they migrate to Windows 11 and they sign up for escalating maintenance fees. The Extended Security Update program for devices running Windows 10 enables enterprises to continue receiving monthly security updates by paying $61 per...

As U.S. federal regulators fine-tune a strategy to push the healthcare sector into strengthening its cybersecurity posture, they are revisiting a HIPAA compliance audit program that’s been dormant since 2017. A new round of HIPAA audits for regulated entities is in the works. The Department of Health and Human Services recently published a notice saying that its Office for Civil Rights would be pulling the trigger soon on a study to assess...

‘Essential’ and ‘Enhanced’ Best Practices Will Influence Upcoming Rule-Making The Department of Health and Human Services has released guidance that spells out voluntary cybersecurity performance goals for the healthcare sector. The new 13-page Cybersecurity Performance Goals document, recently released by HHS’ Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, details both essential goals “to outline...

We hope that you had a successful 2023. Looking back, 2023 saw a number of high-profile breaches as criminals and nation-state-supported hackers both created new methods of attacking and took advantage of existing vulnerabilities. Looking to 2024, here are a few things that we think are worth keeping an eye on moving forward. Phishing NOW WITH AI Phishing continues to be a persistent and lucrative attack vector for criminals and state-...

Massachusetts Management Firm to Pay $100,000, Monitor HIPAA Compliance for 3 Years A Massachusetts-based medical management firm holds the dubious honor of being the first ransomware victim fined for a data breach by the Department of Health and Human Services. Doctor Management Group agreed to a $100,000 financial settlement and three years of HIPAA compliance monitoring and corrective actions following an investigation into a 2019 ransomware...