Breach News This Week – United States
United States – Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority
https://www.govtech.com/public-safety/Malware-Attack-Stifles-Philadelphia-Area-Transit-Agency.html?&web_view=true
Exploit: Ransomware
Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority: Municipal Transportation Agency
Risk to Business: 1.802 = Severe
An attack on its servers brought many operations at the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority to a screeching halt. Starting Aug. 10, SEPTA was unable to provide real-time updates to riders. At the same time, SEPTA staffers were unable to access basic business applications like email and project files. The agency has already been having difficulty with operations and morale internally, and this has not helped the cause.
Individual Risk: No personal or financial information was reported as compromised in this incident, including SEPTA Key cards.
Customers Impacted: 308K + riders and 9,200 employees
How it Could Affect Your Customers’ Business: Not only are customers inconvenienced, ongoing technology troubles with no definite cause, poor communication on all fronts, and no end in sight doesn’t just impact your customers, it also destroys your employees’ morale, leading to hiring and retention problems as well as malicious insider threats.
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United States – Valley Health Systems
https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/107580/cyber-crime/valley-health-systems-revil-ransomware.html?web_view=true
Exploit: Ransomware
Valley Health Systems: Healthcare Organization
Risk to Business: 2.177 = Severe
Netwalker ransomware appears to be the culprit in a data breach at the University of Utah. The school reportedly paid a ransomware gang $457,059 in order to avoid having student information released online. The hack occurred on July 19, and the cybercriminals gained access to the network of the university’s College of Social and Behavioral Science [CSBS].
Individual Risk: 2.224 = Severe
Even when a ransom is paid, there’s never proof that the gang really did destroy the stolen data, instead of copying it or selling it. Students should be aware of this data being used in spear phishing attempts.
Customers Impacted: Unknown
How it Could Affect Your Customers’ Business Ransomware is everywhere and it’s most commonly delivered through a phishing email, and this gang has been particularly active lately, especially against healthcare targets as COVID-19 research and treatment data remains a hot commodity in Dark Web markets.
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United States – Utah Pathology
https://kutv.com/news/local/breach-exposes-critical-patient-data-of-more-than-100k-at-utah-pathology-services?&web_view=true
Exploit: Unauthorized Access to Data
Utah Pathology: Healthcare Service Provider
Risk to Business: 1.775 = Severe
A breach was uncovered when an unknown party attempted to redirect funds from within Utah Pathology, revealing an intrusion that exposed sensitive data and PII including date of birth, gender phone number, mailing address, email address, insurance information including ID and group numbers, and clinical and diagnostic information related to pathology services and for a smaller percentage of patients, their Social Security number.
Individual Risk: 1.774 = Severe
Letters have been mailed to those patients whose information was impacted and the practice has made the services of security company Cyberscout available to those with exposed data free for 12 months.
Customers Impacted: 112,000
How it Could Affect Your Customers’ Business: Health care information is at a premium right now because it is a hot seller on the Dark Web. But a healthcare data breach doesn’t just expose information, it also exposes you to regulatory scrutiny and data privacy violation fines.
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United States – Houston United Memorial Medical Center
https://www.databreaches.net/already-in-the-midst-of-a-crisis-a-houston-hospital-was-attacked-by-ransomware/
Exploit: Ransomware
Houston United Memorial Medical Center: Regional Hospital
Risk to Business: 1.612 = Severe
Althouth the gang had previously said that they were not attacking medical targets during the pandemic, on or about August 3, Maze ransomware was unleashed on Houston United Memorial Medical Center, and the gang added UMMC to their leak site. Maze posted as proof of the claimed UMMC hack some general files from the center, and one folder containing some identifiable (but unconfirmed) patient records. The hospital has made no announcement regarding the impact or severity of the hack.
Individual Risk: 2.782 = Moderate
So far, there’s limited evidence that a significant amount of patient data was exposed in this incident.
Customers Impacted: Unknown
How it Could Affect Your Customers’ Business: Ransomware isn’t going away anytime soon. In fact, updated varieties like double extortion ransomware are entering the scene to cause more damage to businesses that fail to guard against the most likely infection vector: phishing.
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Breach News This Week- Canada
Canada – Brookfield Residential
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/darkside-ransomware-hits-north-american-real-estate-developer/?&web_view=true
Exploit: Ransomware
Brookfield Residential: Home Builder
Risk to Business: 2.033 = Severe
DarkSide ransomware is the culprit in an attack on North American home builder and community developer Brookfield Residential. The company acknowledged that a limited subset of files had been impacted containing employee records and that the files had been restored from backup and incident reported to the appropriate authorities. Initial confusion about the scope of the incident was quickly cleared up: the ransomware gang initially claimed to have hacked Brookfield Asset Management, of which Brookfield Residential is a division, but later confirmed that it was just the builder affected.
Individual Risk: 2.801 = Moderate
The company has only indicated that a limited amount of employee records were impacted and has not specified the nature of that data.
Customers Impacted: Unknown
How it Could Affect Your Customers’ Business: Ransomware is continuing to trip up businesses of every size. In a challenging economy, even cybercriminals have to work a little harder, which means ransomware attack rates and breach risks are rising every day.
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Breach News This Week – United Kingdom & European Union
United Kingdom – Southern Water
https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/28/southern_water_sharepoint_shenanigans/?&web_view=true
Exploit: Accidental Data Sharing (Human Error)
Southern Water: Utility Company
Risk to Business: 2.201 = Severe
A user at the utility company’s website discovered some Sharepoint settings shenanigans. Southern Water had set up Sharepoint to host customer information as a “your account” style section of their website exposed URLs that could be tweaked to view other people’s account information. Customers who knew how to tweak Sharepoint were able to quickly access the full name, address, customer account number, payment reference number, bill and payment dates, account balance, payment amount, bill amount, meter details, and meter readings of other customers.
Individual Risk: 2.810 = Moderate
No financial data was exposed, and the incident only affected general publically available data accessed through the Sharepoint site by someone who already had a system ID.
Customers Impacted: Unknown
How it Could Affect Your Customers’ Business: Controlling who has access to what, and who needs to have access to what, can be a time-consuming process for IT support, but failing to secure information correctly can have dangerous consequences including an expensive data breach.
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Breach News This Week – Asia
India – Paytm
https://ciso.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/paytm-mall-suffers-massive-data-breach-ransom-demanded-report/77843648
Exploit: Ransomware
Paytm: Payment Processing Service
Risk to Business: 2.291 = Severe
Cybersecurity researchers have confirmed that a hacker group using the name John Wick has claimed responsibility for a ransomware attack on the payment processing giant. The hackers are demanding 11 Etherium in cryptocurrency as payment, but the company denies that it has suffered a breach, although experts find the claim and evidence presented by the hackers credible.
Individual Risk: This hack appears to be related to merchant card batch processing and not individual credit card transaction data.
Customers Impacted: Unknown
How it Could Affect Your Customers’ Business: Having a data breach at all is a huge problem that shouldn’t be compounded by denying an incident that credible experts believe occurred. 2020 is shaping up to be a banner year for data breaches, and joining that list is both unpleasant and expensive.
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New This Week in Cybersecurity News – Australia & New Zealand
New Zealand – New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZX)
https://www.scmagazine.com/home/security-news/phishing/hackers-hijack-design-platform-to-go-phishing/
Exploit: DDoS/Hacking Attack
New Zealand Stock Exchange – Commercial and Financial Trading
Risk to Business: 1.113 = Extreme
It has been a wild week for businesses, investor, and stock traders in New Zealand ad a series of cybersecurity incidents in rapid succession caused trading to stop and start several times. The market faced disruptions for four days last week when it was hit repeatedly by distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, affecting both cash trading and other transactions while taking down its internet capabilities. Officials claim that the attacks are coming from an “offshore” source, and may be connected to recent hacking troubles in Australia. As of 8/30 the problem was still reoccurring and being addressed by NZX, the Financial Markets Authority (FMA), Spark, and a U.S.-based cybersecurity firm Akamai Technologies
Individual Risk: No personal information or consumer financial data has been reported compromised in this incident.
Customers Impacted: Unknown
How it Could Affect Your Customers’ Business: Nation-state cyberattacks are growing in frequency and scale as hacking ramps up into a formidable weapon to use to interrupt a country’s business and financial systems. backing up data and controlling access points helps guard against these attacks.
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The Week in Breach Risk Levels
1 – 1.5 = Extreme Risk
1.51 – 2.49 = Severe Risk
2.5 – 3 = Moderate Risk
Risk scores for The Week in Breach are calculated using a formula that considers a wide range of factors related to the assessed breach.
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