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Latest US Health Data Breaches Continue Ransomware Trend
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 accounted for 97% of all affected individuals. “These trends indicate that this industry continues...
read moreScammers Piggyback on AWS to Phish Victims
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, with the sender address and unrelated text in a foreign language. When users click on malicious...
read moreNIST Adds Cybersecurity Guidance to HIPAA Security Rule
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 had “recognized security practices” in place for at least the previous 12 months when...
read moreFour Legacy Security Vulnerabilities Still Posing Threats
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 pose the greatest risk. In reality, serious vulnerabilities never seem to die. In April, for example,...
read moreIs Facebook a Business Associate?
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 Doe” plaintiff in the Northern District of California, alleges Facebook knowingly receives patient data...
read moreOne Malicious Insider Leads to $155M Settlement
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 credit union group in addition to 1.8 million credit card holders from outside the member base over...
read moreRansomware payments are down.
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 $211,529, down 34% from the previous quarter, Coveware found. It attributes this to fewer victims paying, attackers overall infecting smaller organizations – given the law enforcement fallout they often face after hitting very large...
read moreHHS HC3: Beware of Lapsus$, Email Marketing-Related Threats
Authorities Warn Healthcare, Public Health Sectors of Latest Concerns Federal authorities are warning the healthcare sector of potential threats involving Lapsus$, including those related to the extortion group’s recent hack of identity management vendor Okta. The Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center, or HC3, in an advisory issued on April 7, warns of attack threats to the sector by Lapsus$. Lapsus$ Threats HC3 warns that hacking group Lapsus$ relies on “bribery and...
read morePremium Hikes and Vetting Decrease US Cyber Insurance Losses
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 due to steep premium hikes and a significant increase in vetting. The hope is that these factors...
read moreLarge Hacking Incidents Increasing Since February
The number of major health data breaches and the number of individuals posted to the HHS “Wall of Shame” so far in 2022 has surged in recent weeks as reports of large hacking incidents continue to flow into regulators. As of last week, the HIPAA Breach Reporting Tool website shows that 117 breaches affecting about 5.32 million people have been posted in 2022. That’s an increase of nearly 83% in the number of breaches posted on the HHS site for 2022 and about a 72% surge in the number of individuals affected by those incidents since Feb....
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