Jason Hidalgo reports: The Lyon County School District has joined the growing list of local agencies hit by hackers after a virus took down its systems earlier this month. Superintendent Wayne Workman confirmed to the Reno Gazette Journal on Monday afternoon that the school district is working to restore its systems after a virus made…
Category: U.S.
1.4 million student Social Security numbers found unencrypted in Maryland
Does anyone remember the massive data security incident involving the University of Maryland in 2014? Here’s a link to some of this site’s preliminary coverage of that breach. Hundreds of thousands impacted, lots of media coverage and analyses, and you’d hope that the state would have learned its lesson about storing and protecting student and…
Syracuse schools’ hit by ransomware; ransom demands increase as days go by
Julie McMahon reports: Ransomware caused the Syracuse City School District’s week-long computer outage, a source said. The district’s internet has had systemwide outages since an “event” early Monday morning, officials said. Officials released little information about the investigation and cause of the computer outages. In a statement Friday afternoon, a spokesman said an “attack froze…
Penobscot Community Health Center notifying 13,000 patients about collection agency breach
Add Penobscot Community Health Center in Maine to the list of entities that had patients affected by the American Medical Collections Agency hack.They posted the following notice on their website: PCHC values the privacy and confidentiality of its patients’ information. Regrettably, this notice is regarding the American Medical Collection Agency (AMCA) incident, which you may…
AZ: Gila County experiences major interruption in technical service
Teresa Mcquerrey reports: Gila County’s email and phone systems were apparently infected by ransomware starting July 2. It took a week before most of its online services were restored. […] As of press time, the county had released no official statement about the cause or scope of the problem with its online services. Read more…
US mayors group adopts resolution not to pay any more ransoms to hackers
Catalin Cimpanu reports: The US Conference of Mayors unanimously adopted yesterday a resolution not to pay any more ransom demands to hackers following ransomware infections. “Paying ransomware attackers encourages continued attacks on other government systems, as perpetrators financially benefit,” the adopted resolution reads. Read more on ZDNet.