Jason Clayworth reports that Iowa’s Department of Human Services mistakenly shared 425 Iowans’ information with nursing facilities. The DHS became aware of the incident on Jan. 22. The agency sent letters dated Feb. 12 to each person, noting that the agency’s Medicaid Enterprise Medical Services United had mailed roster reports to the homes and had…
Category: Government Sector
North Dorset Council hit by ransomware, flips the bird at miscreants
Kat Hall reports: North Dorset District Council is working with police to identify the source of a ransomware attack this week, the latest incident in what security experts believe to be a growing problem for local authorities. According to an email seen by The Register, the attack had infected 6,000 files on the council’s servers by…
US Debuts ‘Hack the Pentagon’ Bug Bounty
Tara Seals reports: Announcing what it calls “the first cyber bug bounty program in the history of the federal government,” the Department of Defense is inviting hackers to test the department’s cybersecurity profile. The Hack the Pentagon initiative is a pilot program that will use commercial sector crowdsourcing to uncover vulnerabilities and probe around for flaws on…
Update on Camden County Courthouse Security Incident
There’s an update to an incident noted previously on this site involving the Camden County Courthouse in Missouri. RiskBased Security recaps what happened: Unknown persons compromised a courthouse computer hard drive containing e-mails belonging to county officials. Apparently the emails in question were the subject of an information request under Missouri’s Sunshine Law, intended to promote…
MA: Melrose Police pay hackers $489 in Bitcoin to recover encryption key
Aaron Leibowitz reports: Hackers stole the encryption key to a software system at the Melrose Police Station on Thursday evening, compelling the department to pay the hackers one Bitcoin to regain control, Chief Michael Lyle told the Free Press on Monday. The attack came in the form of an email sent to the entire department…
Los Angeles County health department targeted in ransomware attack
Abby Sewell reports that Los Angeles County Department of Health Services computers were hit with a ransomware attack just days after a similar attack on Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center. The attack was on a smaller scale and the county did not pay any ransom. Nor, it seems, did they need to. Spokesman Michael Wilson said the agency…