IT Breaches for July 2020
This month, healthcare data breaches keep climbing, Twitter apologizes for its breach and more. Read some of the incidents in the articles below:
CYBERSECURITY NEWS
Social Media, Healthcare and Higher Education struggle in cybersecurity
This month, healthcare data breaches keep climbing, Twitter apologizes for its breach and more. Read some of the incidents in the articles below:
Industry: Social Media
Exploit: Accidental Data Sharing
Twitter sent a notification to business clients last week acknowledging a data breach that exposed the personal and billing information of some users. The breach occurred due to an issue that led to some users’ sensitive information being stored in the browser’s cache. Twitter explained that it recently became aware of this issue. Business users were warned that prior to May 20, 2020, if you viewed your billing information on ads.twitter or analytics.twitter your account’s billing information may be at risk.
Twitter did not release an estimate of the accounts affected, but it did specify that only business customers were at risk, and only a percentage of business customers had any details exposed. The leaked information potentially included email addresses, users’ contact numbers, and the last four digits of credit card numbers used for Ads accounts. Twitter business customers should monitor potentially affected payment accounts.
Industry: Healthcare
Exploit: Internal Email Account Compromise
AMT Healthcare revealed this week that it had experienced a data breach affecting a large pool of customers in December 2019 that was discovered through suspicious activity on an employee email account. The California-based company recently completed an investigation into the incident and contacted those who were affected. Potentially compromised data includes patient names, Social Security numbers, medical record numbers, diagnosis information, health insurance policy information, medical history information, and driver’s license/state identification numbers.
Anyone that may be at risk of compromise was informed this week. Extremely sensitive data was compromised in this breach, and those affected should beware of the potential for fraud, identity theft, and spear phishing attempts that this stolen data creates. A filing of the account posted to the breach portal at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services noted that potentially affected patients are being offered free credit monitoring services.
When clients choose to do sensitive business with a company, they’re also trusting that company to guard their information. This imperative is even stronger for companies that collect health information. Not only does a data breach cost healthcare organizations patient confidence, but it also costs a fortune in HIPPA-related fines.
Industry: Higher Education
Exploit: Ransomware
The University of California San Francisco (UCSF) confirmed this week that it paid cybercriminals $1.14 million to decrypt data following a ransomware attack. Although UCSF was able to detect the incident quickly, it was not fast enough to allow cybersecurity teams to quarantine the affected servers, and a significant portion of its medical school and research data was encrypted. The ransom was demanded to free essential COVID-19 research data that was captured in an intrusion on June 1. Reports indicate that UCSF was one of four academic institutions targeted in a single week by the Netwalker ransomware group.
Ransomware is a growing menace to every organization, and it’s not just sensitive business or financial data that Dark Web criminals are after. Research data has become an increasingly hot commodity. Paying ransoms to cybercriminals to decrypt research data sets a dangerous precedent. Collecting large sums will embolden other groups that can take down big fish to score big paydays.
Masked Email Targets CEO
It seems as if every week, sometimes every day, we hear about a data breach somewhere. I had an attempted breach hit really close to home just recently. Here’s what happened:
It seems as if every week, sometimes every day, we hear about a data breach somewhere. I had an attempted breach hit really close to home just recently. Here’s what happened:
Our controller received an email that she had every reason to believe was from me. My email address was spelled properly and the extension was correct. Inside the email, the request was short and straightforward; the sender asked what information was needed to initiate a wire transfer and it was signed with my first name. The controller did note that there was no email signature as we sometimes use, but internally I don’t always include that on my emails to her.
She responded to the request and very shortly received a second email instructing her to proceed with the sizeable wire transfer. I was out of the office that day so she assumed that I was in a rush for the money. However, at the very last minute, as she thought about the wording in the email, she said that it “just didn’t sound like me.” The wording was too terse, too abrupt and there were no “please” or “thank you’s” as she and I usually include in our requests to one another. She picked up the phone and called me. The wire transfer was stopped.
The sender had masked his/her email address so that it appeared as an email from me. Had our recipient hovered over the address, she might have been able to see the actual sender’s address. In this case, however, this employee listening to that tiny voice in her mind saying that something wasn’t quite right is what saved the day. This is the level of vigilance we must all maintain to keep our environments safe.
When in doubt, no matter how small, check it out.
-Elaine Taylor, RealTime CEO