On July 1, DataBreaches reported that Mount Desert Island Hospital (MDIH) in Maine notified HHS on June 30 that 24,180 patients had been affected by a breach between April 28 and May 7. The types of protected health information involved included name, address, date of birth, driver’s license/state identification number, Social Security number, financial account…
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
Schools Are the Most Targeted Industry by Ransomware Gangs
Waqas reports that based on research by Sophos, the education sector is the most vulnerable and targeted by ransomware attacks. KEY FINDINGS 80% of lower education providers and 79% of higher education institutions reported ransomware attacks in the last year. Education is the most targeted industry by cybercriminals, primarily motivated by the high percentage of…
NYC schools are tightening cybersecurity. Some educators fear unintended consequences.
Michael Elsen-Rooney reports: Following two high-profile data breaches, New York City’s Education Department has moved to shore up its cybersecurity protocols, increasing its vetting of software vendors and tightening email access for schools and parent leaders. Because of the new protocols, the school year has started without approvals for scores of programs, including popular ones…
K–12 IT Administrators Encounter Additional Security Controls for Users Under 18
Rebecca Torchia reports: Following the shift to incorporate more online and digital learning, schools leaned into the adoption of educational software products and applications. Many of these applications tracked student data, with data collection being the primary driver of some applications’ use in schools, as educators found value in tools that could analyze students’ progress. In other cases,…
Experiment: How easy it was for me to influence Anonymous hacktivists
Jesse William McGraw writes: To say that we are living in a volatile time would be a brazen understatement. Since the onset of #OpRussia and successive operations, arguably the entire landscape of hacktivism has changed. On February 25th, 2022, Anonymous officially declared war on Russia in response to the Russian-Ukrainian war. What I witnessed in…
“I’m Not Pro-Russia and I’m Not a Terrorist!” —- InfraGard and Airbus Hacker “USDoD” Unveils His New Campaigns
The first time DataBreaches remembers hearing about the man who calls himself “USDoD” was when he posted a sales listing for member data from InfraGard. He had not only managed to acquire data on 80,000 members of an organization dedicated to protecting critical infrastructure, but his revelation of his method exposed some embarrassingly inept security…