On March 8, DataBreaches learned of another attack on a plastic surgery group. This time, it was the Long Island Plastic Surgical Group, a group that has 10 locations in New York and dozens of doctors. This is another ransomware story that may have a very unhappy ending for patients and employees. Hit by Two…
“Lifelock” pleads guilty to hacking and fraud charges
Earlier today, Robert A. Purbeck of Idaho, aka “Lifelock” and “Studmaster,” pleaded guilty in an Atlanta federal courtroom to two counts of an 11-count indictment filed against him in 2021. The two counts charged violation of Title 18, United States Code/ Sections 1030(a)(2)(C)/ 1030(c)(2)(B)(i) and 1030(c)(2)(B)(iii) and Section 2, more commonly known as the Computer…
The 2024 Breach Barometer reports a staggering 171 million patient records breached. And that’s just the ones we know about.
Each year, many news sites add up the number of reports on HHS’s public breach tool and then add up the number of records reported for those incidents. For 2023, that came to 725 reports and about 135 million records. Those numbers are disturbing, but not as disturbing as the numbers out today by Protenus….
Decreasing ransomware attacks: two strategies to consider
Experts agree that a ban on ransom payments should decrease ransomware attacks, but concerns about implementing any ban are not trivial. Here are two ideas to consider. Proposal 1: Increasing the Sanctions List Expanding the sanctions list to include every ransomware group with a leak site might make threat actors less likely to threaten victims…
What Austin ISD said led to student information being released to non-guardians
Johann Castro reports: Some Austin ISD students mistakenly had their records released to people who weren’t their parents or legal guardians. According to a report from KVUE’s media partners at the Austin American-Statesman, documents revealed that a special education database vendor mistakenly released the private information for about 160 Austin students in December. The report…
Scranton School District hit by cyber attack
Sarah Hofius Hall reports: The Scranton School District is the target of a ransomware attack, the acting superintendent confirmed Friday. Third-party forensic specialists are investigating the source of the incident and the impact on district systems and will “restore full functionality to the system as soon as possible,” according to the statement from Acting Superintendent…