Author: Janet Oravetz reports: Personal information of some Aurora Water customers, such as names, card numbers and expiration dates, may have been compromised through a data breach, according to the city’s water department. The department made an announcement about the security incident on Monday and said customers who used the Click2Gov payment system to make one-time…
Category: Hack
As 2019 draws to a close, some entities are taking harder look at storing PHI in employee email accounts
Okay, so two exemplars doesn’t prove any kind of trend, but I’m glad to see some entities now taking steps to reduce how much PHI is stored in employee email accounts. Here are two recent incidents, both reported to HHS in December: Healthcare Administrative Partners (HAP) is a Pennsylvania-based business associate under HIPAA. On December…
Georgia Supreme Court resuscitates patient lawsuit against Athens Orthopedic Clinic
The Georgia Supreme Court has breathed new life into a lawsuit by patients of Athens Orthopedic Clinic (AOC) whose data were stolen by thedarkoverlord in 2016. In a decision issued this week, the judges unanimously reversed the Court of Appeals’ dismissal of the lawsuit, vacated other parts of their ruling, and remanded the case. At…
Chinese hacker group caught bypassing 2FA
Catalin Cimpanu reports: Security researchers say they found evidence that a Chinese government-linked hacking group has been bypassing two-factor authentication (2FA) in a recent wave of attacks. The attacks have been attributed to a group the cyber-security industry is tracking as APT20, believed to operate on the behest of the Beijing government, Dutch cyber-security firm…
The Hacker Who Took Down a Country
Kit Chellel reports: The attack against Liberia began in October 2016. More than a half-million security cameras around the world tried to connect to a handful of servers used by Lonestar Cell MTN, a local mobile phone operator, and Lonestar’s network was overwhelmed. Internet access for its 1.5 million customers slowed to a crawl, then…
‘Russian pirate hacked 39 British universities’
Danny Fortson reports: A Russian internet pirate under investigation for potential ties to Russia’s intelligence services is alleged to have hacked the systems of 39 British universities. Alexandra Elbakyan is founder of Sci-Hub, a website that publishes millions of academic papers free that would otherwise be available only through subscriptions or one-off payments. Read more…