Russia Cracks Down on Hackers

Law enforcement in Russia have carried out the largest ever arrest of hackers in the country after rounding up 50 people that were allegedly responsible for stealing more than $25 million from Russian financial institutions. Russia’s Interior Ministry and Federal Security Service (FSB) carried out raids across the country that seized computer equipment, financial documents, […]

Unfortunately for Dropbox, last week several identity theft protection services including LifeLock wrongly reported that 73 million usernames and passwords had been stolen in a data breach on the cloud storage company. The problem is that Dropbox didn’t have a data breach, Tumblr did. The source of the mistake was the identity monitoring firm CSID. […]

Halfway through the fiscal year, the top 2016 hacker trend has become clear: ransomware. PhishMe, a threat management team, reports that ransomware attacks have increased 56% since 2015, and ransomware is attached to as much as 93% of all phishing emails. Why the trend? Ransomware is more efficient, easier to use and safer for the hacker. Moving Target The cybercriminals of […]

Infoblox DNS Threat Index (a leading indicator of worldwide malicious Domain Name System threats) reported in Q1 2016 an increased threat of almost 10% over the previous quarter, resulting in an all-time high of 137. This is largely due to a 3500% increase in ransomware domains recorded in Q1 2016.  Cybercriminals and hackers use these domains to for nefarious activities […]

Florida-based business, Southeast Eye Institute, P.A. (d.b.a. Eye Associates of Pinellas) reported that as many as 87,314 individuals may have had  personal information stolen. This includes names, addresses, phone numbers, D.O.B., SSN, and insurance information.  Eye Associates of Pinellas was using medical software designed by, Bizmatics, a third-party provider.  Bizmatics notified Eye Associates on March 30, 2016, a  that […]

We already heard that machinery in US power plants were vulnerable to attacks from hackers and now the Department of Homeland Security has put out a warning saying just that. The department’s Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) is concerned that the ESC 8832 data controller could be taken over by an attacker with the most basic […]

Raleigh Orthopedic Clinic (ROC) of North Carolina is paying for its violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 Privacy Rule, for allegedly sharing private and protected patient information with a potential business partner. $750,000, to be exact. The Office of Civil Rights (a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human […]

The “Mega-hacks” of major health care industry players like Anthem, Inc and Premera Blue Cross, that were so popular in early 2016, seem to be giving way to attacks on smaller, more vulnerable businesses. A good example of this trend can be seen in the most recent industry breach of an 11-physician practice in Katy, […]

Since 2010, the number of data breaches in the healthcare industry has been steadily on the rise. Consequently, a new study out by the Ponemon Institute has found that such breaches will end up costing the industry 6.2 billion dollars. The source of the breaches? Employees. According to the study, the thing that most organizations […]

In an attempt to update dental procedure codes, the American Dental Association may have inadvertently infected thousands of dental offices across the United States with malware. As part of a mailer sent to ADA members, the thumb drives were intended to contain codes that offices use to keep track of procedures for billing and insurance […]

It appears there’s a new form of ransomware that was clearly created by hackers who are fans of the movie “Saw”. Going by the name Jigsaw, not only does it encrypt files and ask for money to unlock them, it also begins to delete your files while raising the ransom demand. Taking its name from the […]

Hackers were able to get into the systems of the Bangladesh central bank and steal $81 million dollars thanks to one of the most ridiculous security lapses ever seen: cheap routers. After being alerted to a data breach in February, law enforcement realized that not only were the bank’s computers connected to the SWIFT global […]

In the past year ransomware attacks, malware that encrypts files then demands payment in Bitcoins to get a key to unlock them, have not only increased in number of attacks, but also the types of organizations hit. Medical facilities have been a big target. Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital in Los Angeles paid about $17,000 to hackers […]

There’s been a recent rash malware that utilizes JavaScript-based downloaders to install ransomware on victims’ computers. Like most ransomware, it then encrypts their files and demands payment in Bitcoins to get a key to unlock them. It’s pretty unusual for anyone to send a Javascript attachment, so users should be on the lookout for any […]

With technology advancing so rapidly there’s sure to be an impact on medicine. Already we are seeing advancements in how people collect health data; how to prevent, detect, and treat illness; and there are fundamental changes in how and where treatment is given. Here are eight technologies to watch in order to see how they […]

According to the FBI, instance of CEO fraud are dramatically on the rise. Costing businesses an estimated $2.3 billion over the past three years, victims are usually duped by scammers who impersonate a company’s CEO via email then have money wired to the criminals’ account. Typically this type of attack starts with either sending a […]

Now that smart phones have become ubiquitous to our daily lives, making everything from banking to turning on the lights more convenient, it’s not surprising that the healthcare industry is trying to utilize this technology to provide better patient care by giving doctors information in real time. Unfortunately that convenience may come at the price […]

A new version of ransomware called Locky infected Methodist Hospital in Henderson, Kentucky.  The hospital put itself on an internal state of emergency after the malware took over their system. Locky isn’t very different from other ransomware, but it’s used by criminal network Dridex, which is causing it to spread very quickly. The Locky ransomware infects a single computer spreads to connected […]

A new method of identity theft spoofs a CEO’s email address to trick an employee into sending W-2 information to hackers.  One recent victim of this fraud was Pennsylvania Main Line Health. 11,000 employees of the hospital and health center network had sensitive information stolen by hackers.  The company was unaware of the hack until the FBI […]

Your medical or healthcare practice is in grave danger, and you probably don’t even know it.  Any random thief can spend less than $100 and get the keys to your network. The breach could cost you millions and make your patients run for the hills. The same kind of attack cost Target $162 million.  Home […]