WSAZ reports that Kanawha County Schools tell them their internal documents have been restored after a ransomware hack that occurred Wednesday evening. No personal information was reportedly accessed in the attack, and it appears that the school district did not pay any ransom. There’s no indication as yet as to how the attacker was able to inject the…
Month: January 2017
Japan gropes for cyberattack solution as victims suffer in silence
Ayako Mie reports: Last November, chilling news made headlines nationwide — the internal communications network of the Defense Ministry and Self-Defense Forces had been hacked in September, possibly by another nation. According to Kyodo News, the Defense Information Infrastructure, the high-speed, high-capacity communications network linking SDF bases and camps, was compromised. Following the report, Defense…
UK: Investigation after Barts Health Trust hit by cyber attack
Mark Chandler reports that the biggest NHS trust in London has been hit by a cyberattack, but the nature of the attack is not clear. Barts Health Trust, which runs four hospitals – The Royal London, St Bartholomew’s, Whipps Cross, and Newham – report that although they initially believed it was a ransomware attack, they have ruled that…
2016: Healthcare data breaches in review, Part 2
This is the second part of a look-back at 2016 and a commentary on why we need to analyze breaches differently if we really want to become more proactive in preventing them. Part 1 of this article can be found here). To recap Part 1: although headlines tend to scream “HACK!” (and irritatingly show us stock images of…
2016: Healthcare data breaches in review, Part 1
There were a number of year-in-review analyses for the healthcare sector, but now Protenus has released its report, which is based on analyses of 450 U.S. incidents first disclosed in 2016. The incidents were compiled by DataBreaches.net, who also provided some of the analyses. While some media outlets still headline external hacks where massive numbers of records…
Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles Medical Group notify parents of laptop theft
On December 21, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles Medical Group learned that a laptop had been stolen from a locked car of one of the physicians. The laptop, which contained minor children’s protected health information, was unencrypted. According to a notification letter dated January 13, a copy of which was…