Petronella Cybersecurity News

Malware slipping through to become available on Google Play, Android’s marketplace, is nothing new.  Now, however, a ransomware has snuck through, and it threatens to do a lot of damage. Named Charger, the ransomware took great pains to avoid detection.  It comes packaged in an app called EnergyRescue and employs a lot of features to […]

“Change your WiFi password and show guests where your loyalty lies! #ThatsMyTeam.”  That was a message from Charter Spectrum’s Twitter account, @GetSpectrum.  Do you see any problem there? Charter is one of the largest TV and internet providers in the country.  Having a message about something topical, like the upcoming Super Bowl, is fine.  Reminding […]

Do you remember the Heartbleed vulnerability?  It’s been known about for almost three years now, yet there are still nearly 200,000 systems that are vulnerable to it.  Is yours one of them? Heartbleed is a zero day vulnerability found in OpenSSL that allows hackers to read parts of a server’s memory, which can lead to […]

There’s a new phishing scam going around aimed at stealing your Gmail password.  The scary thing is that even computer security pros are falling for it. Gmail is by far the most popular service for email, clocking in at over a billion active monthly users.  Gmail is popular for a number of reasons, not least […]

Imagine you won a Programmer of the Year Award in high school.  You get into James Madison University.  You get an internship with a government security contractor.  You create a bit of software and make about $100,000 of it.  And then, at 21 years old, you’re facing a ten-year prison sentence. That’s the biography of one […]

Eleven gigabytes of health data from SOCOM, the US Special Operations Command, was exposed and ripe for hacker pickings.  The vulnerability had to do with an unprotected remote syncing service, stemming from an improperly configured backup by Potomac Healthcare, a military subcontractor. The security breach was discovered by Chris Vickery, a white hat hacker who […]

How many times have you seen a TV show or movie where a couple of tough guys in leather jackets, maybe carrying baseball bats, walk into a diner or mom and pop shop and demand money?  When the owner refuses, they start smashing stuff, and when they’re done they demand protection money to make sure […]

Less than a month ago, a major city lost power for a little more than an hour just after midnight, affecting over 200,000 people.  A cybersecurity firm claims it was very similar to an incident from a year before, and that Russia is very likely behind it. The attack occurred on December 17 of last year […]

You may recall the tiff between Apple and the FBI following the shooting that took place on December 2, 2015 in San Bernardino, California that left 14 people dead and 22 wounded.  The FBI wanted Apple’s help in unlocking the iPhone of Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the shooters, to see what information they could glean […]

One way investigators have of identifying the source of computer hacks is by looking at the code.  Last week, malware code connected to cyberattacks the US says were perpetrated by Russia was found in a laptop at an electric company in Vermont. The code was discovered after the Burlington Electric Department received an alert sent out by the […]

The number of physicians who will see their Medicare payments reduced by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will fall in 2017; however, the amount of the adjustment for those who do qualify (because they do not meet the “Meaningful Use” guidelines) will be increasing from the current penalty of 2% to 3%. […]

On November 7 of this year, Community Health Plan of Washington (CHPW), a nonprofit Medicaid-based health insurance company in Seattle, received a disturbing voicemail, the effects of which are just today being fully realized. The unidentified caller stated that the firm (a subsidiary of NTT Data) who provides technical services to CHPW had a major […]

We may never know exactly what happened to American electorate system during 2016, who was responsible, or how it influenced the election. But there was one insight into the 2016 election hacking that will give you a true insight into what happened without any political slant. Plus, if you read more you’ll find out about […]

Would you sign off on a room nurse performing open heart surgery on you? No, right? Then why do you buy devices that connect to the internet when they’re not built by cybersecurity experts? Before we open that can of worms, let’s explain what we’re talking about. Today, in just about every home most people […]

The best part of the holidays is that the entire family is in one place, making for some great bonding experiences. Families can cook together, put up decorations, or do whatever Holiday traditions they’ve created over the years. Many families will find themselves sitting down at the dinner table and playing board games like Monopoly, […]

When you’re looking for clarity and conciseness, there’s two places you don’t want to go: Legal guidelines and government guidelines. Just try to read a “terms of agreement” or the IRS tax code for proof. But when the Government puts out guidelines for handling private medical records, you need to know what they’re talking about. […]

When people think of hackers, they think of greasy people stuck to a computer in dark basements all over the world. They think the same thing of the programs hackers use to disrupt people’s lives. Underground. Dirty. Easy to spot as something dangerous. But that’s simply not what all hackers and hacking software look like. […]

You don’t have to sell stolen personal data on the Dark Web, hold files for ransom or perform DDoS attacks for money in order to make serious cash from hacking.  That’s what three Chinese hackers have proven by making about $4 million from US law firms they hacked. The three men: Iat Hong, Bo Zheng and […]

When someone says cyberwarfare, you probably think of computers and servers as the soldiers and the casualties being lost data and infected devices. But in the modern world, cyberwarfare can mean those things as well as real soldiers and guns. This month the cyber security firm that helped the DNC investigate the 2016 election hacks, […]

It’s no secret that 2016 was a rough year for cybersecurity in the medical field. 21st-century Oncology leaked 2.2 million patients’ information. Premier Healthcare lost unencrypted records for 200,00 patients. Hollywood Presbyterian Medical center shelled out $17,000 after a ransomware attack. And just to name a few. But when we look back on 2016, there […]