Petronella Cybersecurity News

Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) was accused of violating two HIPAA data breaches involving protected health information (PHI). The first breach revolved around a stolen laptop. The second breach occurred when OHSU contracted cloud storage usage without securing a business associate agreement. Although these violations have not yet caused harm to any OHSU patients, […]

If you are an iPhone owner who felt smug last Summer after learning that Stagefright bugs were found to be silently spying on almost a billion Android devices, you may want to consider hiding that smile of yours before your Android brethren read this article… Tyler Bohan, a senior security researcher at Cisco Talos, released […]

ATTENTION: New Pokescams Exploiting Pokeman Go Gamers In case you were hiding out in the far reaches of Siberia or have been deep-sea fishing for crabs in Alaska, you have probably heard of the newest Pokémon craze sweeping the globe, called “Pokémon Go.” And in case you do not have children, or are not among […]

What happens when ransomware developers combine two already-aggressive viruses into one Mega Strain? Satana. Satana is the Italian word for Satan, and the title is apropos. It is a devastating two-step combination of malware-strain, Petya, and ransomware, Mischa. And though the two have a shared history, with Mischa playing backup in case Petya fails, it […]

Unfortunately for medical practices the transition and reliance on digital patient records have brought with it a new set of problems. Between hackers stealing patient data or holding it for ransom with ransomware and the increased chances of a HIPAA audit, smaller medical practices run the risk of being forced to close down. In 2011, […]

If your computer is supported by Windows Vista or any later version (including the most recent one, Windows 10), do not postpone your next Microsoft update. The software behemoth announced yesterday that its next monthly security update will include a patch for a “critical” flaw that, if exploited, would allow a hacker to take control […]

When Amazon didn’t take a hacker’s warnings of vulnerabilities seriously, he released the usernames ad passwords to over 80,000 of their users. The hacker, who goes by the handle ox2Taylor, claims to have beached one of the retailer’s servers. After attempting to contact Amazon to notify them and getting no response, he felt the best […]

Hackers are continuously looking for new ways to steal your personal data and sell it on the black market. Thanks to a group of researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and Georgetown University have uncovered a new method of hijacking your phone simply by streaming videos with hidden voice commands. Everybody knows YouTube and […]

June saw the most patient data breaches for 2016 so far, with over 11 million patient accounts compromised, according to a new report.  Over ten million of them came from one single breach. Hackers are not the sole cause of all the data breaches, though they caused a significant portion at just over 40%.  The same […]

A new strain of ransomware has surfaced that is targeting hospitals. Being called “Crysis”, this new malware not only encrypts a hospital’s files, it then uploads that data to the hackers’ servers. As you can imagine, this has hospitals less concerned about if they should pay the ransom, but the HIPAA nightmare this creates. This […]

In the great schism that is the 2016 election year, bi-partisan participation may seem like a thing of the past, but believe it or not, it is not quite dead just yet. A letter sent by Congressmen Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Will Hurd (R-Texas) this week not only praised Deputy Director for Health Information Privacy […]

The biggest threat in the United States when it comes to property crime is identity theft. It surpasses all other property crimes combined with a total of over $10 billion dollars in losses. With that in mind here are five easy steps that will help you protect your identity. Use silly answers for security questions. […]

When purchasing online software programs, it is important to do your research. Case in point? The now defunct commercial keylog developers at hawkeyeproducts.com. Rodel Mendrez, a researcher for Trustwave, became suspicious of the company after catching a poorly-constructed email in his spam trappers. Cached copies revealed a website offering superior keystroke monitoring, that also had […]

We have warned before about Android malware that mimics the user interface of apps like Facebook, Uber, and WhatsApp in order to steal victim’s personal information. Now there are reports of a new Trojan virus that attacks Android devices that was earning the hackers behind it $500,000 a day. In the first half of this […]

By now, you are probably aware that ransomware started running rampant this year. No computer is safe. And now, neither is your smartphone. A report released yesterday by Kaspersky Lab shows that they detected and protected around 35,000 Android users around the world from attempted ransomware attacks between April 2014 to March 2015. The same […]

“Massachusetts General Hospital is deeply committed to the security and confidentiality of our patients’ information, including any such information maintained by our third-party vendors.”  That’s the apology issued by Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston following a data breach that netted a hacker 4,300 patient records. The data thief accessed the files through a third party […]

At the time of this writing, one hacker claims to have stolen information from three healthcare databases totaling up to around 655,000 patient records.  The information includes full names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, mailing addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, race, gender and insurance account info. All of this information is now for sale […]

By hijacking mobile phone accounts, identity thieves have found a new and easy way to make money. This new technique is a form of money laundering, because the thieves take over the mobile account so that they can order equipment like news phones to your account, then turn around and sell them. According to the […]

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again, right? Sometimes, the answer is just no, as is the case with Intel remaining relevant in the personal computer security industry. As you may or may not remember back in the 1990’s, Intel had control of the almost completely useless antiviral, LanDesk Virus Protect. This antiviral […]

If you have been following this blog, you know that hospitals have become a major target of cybercriminals this year. But why? What is it about the healthcare industry that makes it so attractive to hackers? Vulnerability. Healthcare facilities need their equipment to be available, which makes them less secure. They were designed with patients […]