Adam Ashton reports: Two Sacramento Bee databases on a third-party computer server were seized last month by an anonymous hacker who demanded The Bee pay a ransom in Bitcoin to get the data back. The intrusion, which was discovered by a Bee employee last week, exposed one database containing California voter registration data from the…
Category: Malware
TN: Smith Dental notifies HHS of ransomware attack affecting 1,500
On January 22, Robert Smith, DMD, PC in Tennessee reported a breach to HHS. The report indicated that 1,500 patients were impacted by a hacking/IT incident involving their network. A Google search indicated that the practice was likely to be “Smith Dental” in Tennessee. But I could find no press release or statement on their…
Columbia University grad arrested for using key logger software
Robert Abel reports: A Columbia University grad student was arrested for leaving key logger malware on USB sticks left throughout the campus. Bill Liang Lin Wu, 23 was arrested Thursday after he was caught on camera leaving the credential stealing devices on a host of university computers shared by 14 professors. Wu graduated last spring…
Malware incident discovered in May, 2017 affected 2,600 patients: Partners HealthCare System
Partners HealthCare System, whose hospitals include Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s, revealed today that it had discovered a malware attack in May, 2017 that may have exposed 2,600 patients’ information. They learned of the problem on May 8, but because data was mixed in with code, numbers, other data, and unformatted, it took them quite…
Data stealing hacking tool “Luminosity Link” taken out of use: National Crime Agency
A cyber hacking tool that allowed criminals to take full control of victims’ machines is no longer available after an operation co-ordinated by the National Crime Agency. The Luminosity Link RAT (a Remote Access Trojan) enabled hackers to connect to a victim’s machine undetected. They could then disable anti-virus and anti-malware software, carry out commands…
Spain Extradites Russian Hacker Allegedly Implicated in Kelihos To New Haven
Edmund H. Mahony reports: Spain on Friday turned over notorious Russian computer hacker Peter Yuryevich Levashov to FBI cyber detectives in New Haven, who have accused him of developing the Kelihos network of hundreds of thousands of infected computers and using it to stuff inboxes with spam, steal secret financial data and spew malicious programming…