Jacob Taylor reports: A bill that introduces steep penalties for the perpetrators of ransomware attacks, like the one that disabled the network of several Maryland hospitals last year, is making its way through the Maryland legislature. The bill defines ransomware attacks as felonies that would carry a penalty of up to 10 years in prison…
Category: Breach Incidents
Russia Arrests Nine More Involved with the Lurk Malware
Catalin Cimpanu reports: Russian authorities arrested nine hackers they suspect of being involved in the distribution of the Lurk malware. This is the second wave of arrests after authorities apprehended 50 suspects in May 2016. The second arrests were reported today by Russian Interior Ministry spokesperson Irina Volk. Volk said Russian police arrested nine new…
Princeton Pain Management notifies patients after hacker gains access to PHI
Princeton Pain Management is notifying 4,668 patients of a hack that was detected on November 28. Although they found no evidence that data were removed from their system, protected health information (PHI) was accessed. From their notification: What Information Was Involved We believe that this incident may have affected certain information stored in our systems including…
Man Pleads Guilty in Bradley University Data Breach
Eugene Daniel reports: Tuesday, Gbadebo Adebiyi, 41, admitted in federal court to participating in a scheme dating back to 2015. Then, Bradley University reported a data breach of employees’ personal information which was used to file false 2014 tax returns. Adebiyi confessed to working with others to collect money from the tax returns. Read more on Central Illinois…
With at least 23 incidents and 29,000 victims, the W-2 phishing season is in full swing
Over on Salted Hash, Steve Ragan has also been compiling data on victims of business email compromise (BEC) W-2 phishing scams. BEC W-2 phishing scams are the scams where someone poses as an executive of your organization and sends you an email from an address that at first glance might appear to be real. Their email…
Used government computers bought at auction filled with personal information
The 1980s called…. Scott Noll reports that a KHOU investigation “once again found the City of Houston selling private, personal information through online auctions of used government equipment.” What did they find, you wonder? “On one of the computers, we found a database containing over 100,000 medical records,” explained computer expert Gary Huestis. They do…