Joshua Danielson writes: According to Wired, a recent breach at a marketing and data aggregation firm you’ve probably never heard of potentially exposed the personal information of practically every American adult alive today. Such a story has to leave some wondering what the long-term impact is for organizations. I decided to try to find out….
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
For Hackers, Anonymity Was Once Critical. That’s Changing.
Stephen Hiltner reports: Ask any hacker who’s been around long enough, and there’s a good chance you’ll hear an archetypal story, tinged with regret, about the first time his or her real identity was publicly disclosed. After enjoying years of online anonymity, the hacker known as Grifter was unmasked by a less-than-scrupulous spouse. “Hey, Neil!”…
SingHealth data breach reveals several ‘inadequate’ security measures
Eileen Yu reports: Investigation into Singapore’s most severe cybersecurity breach has uncovered several poor security practices, including the use of weak administrative passwords and unpatched workstations. The findings were revealed on the first day of hearings led by the Committee of Inquiry (COI), a team set up to probe a July 2018 security breach that…
US military given more authority to launch preventative cyberattacks
From the what-could-possibly-go-wrong dept., Jose Pagliery and Ryan Browne report: The US military is taking a more aggressive stance against foreign government hackers who are targeting the US and is being granted more authority to launch preventative cyberstrikes, according to a summary of the Department of Defense’s new Cyber Strategy. The Pentagon is referring to…
Click2Gov Update: ICYMI Here’s The Latest
RBS is doing a great job of tracking the Click2Gov breaches. In their most recent update, they report: It’s been three months since our original post was published and as feared, breaches of the Click2Gov system continue to be reported. Here is what we’ve learned: Attackers are exploiting an unpatched vulnerability in Oracle’s WebLogic. Early…
Ransomware attacks against hospitals: A timeline
Seth Rosenblatt and Pinguino Kolb report: Ransomware attacks are serious business for hackers―and often completely avoidable. Hospitals and health care systems, now in the business of collecting patient data as a side effect of treating physical maladies, struggle to keep that information secure. While there’s no ransomware-specific cost estimate to the health care business, Verizon’s…