Thomas P. Bossert, who is an assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, writes: Cybersecurity isn’t easy, but simple principles still apply. Accountability is one, cooperation another. They are the cornerstones of security and resilience in any society. In furtherance of both, and after careful investigation, the U.S. today publicly attributes the massive “WannaCry”…
Category: Malware
500 Stanislaus County computers from mental health department quarantined after ransomware detected on network
Ken Carlson reports on Modesto Bee: Stanislaus County’s mental health department was the target of a ransomware attack that disabled its computers this week. About 500 computers in county Behavioral Health and Recovery Services were compromised by the cyberattack Tuesday, according to a press release issued Friday. It appears that the county will not be paying…
East Texas area school officials: Scope of computer breach still unclear
Meredith Shamburger provides an update to a previously reported incident: More than a week after several East Texas school districts were notified of a computer security breach that exposed personal information, officials say they still don’t know how many of their students have been affected. The Texas Department of Agriculture notified nine area districts that…
Proctor schools hit by ransomware attack
Jana Hollingsworth reports: The Proctor school district was hit by a malicious computer software “ransomware” attack last weekend. Student data and payroll information were not affected, said superintendent John Engelking, but some information kept in Microsoft Word files has been locked away by the hacker. Only computers at the middle and high school were affected,…
ID: Jerome School District falls victim to ransomware
Elenee Dao reports: The Jerome School District experienced some internet and phone issues early Monday morning, falling victim to ransomware. Chris Gibson, IT director of the district, said the virus happened early Monday morning around 3 a.m. and when he came into work at 6:30 a.m., he noticed the phone and internet not working. Gibson…
National Capital Poison Center discloses ransomware incident
One of the reasons DataBreaches.net has never confined its reporting and analyses to HIPAA-covered entities is that there are so many other types of entities that collect and store health or medical information. Today’s example comes from the National Capital Poison Center, who found themselves in the unenviable position of reporting a ransomware attack that…