Yet Another Security Blog

 Summary Not a lot of regular news, but we had both the Verizon and Sophos annual reports came out. News The Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report for 2022 indicated that while the education sector continues to be a favorite target, the motivator is mostly financial (somewhat confirming the Sophos report) and Medical Data is actually the least sought after.  The largest sector they indicated as a target was Professional, followed closely matched Finance, Information Technology, Manufacturing, and Public Administration.   https://cyware.com/news/education-sector-under-constant-cyberattacks-f2fbd34f https://www.verizon.com/business/resources/reports/dbir/ Education The FBI issued an alert that they have become aware of cybercriminals selling usernames and passwords from university breaches.  The sales are occurring on a variety of dark websites.  The biggest takeaway for me was that just because you recover from an initial attack it does not mean it is ov...

Summary Hopefully, these will be a bit more regular now that the semester is over.   We are seeing attacks against all infrastructure areas increasing.  This week's report has school breaches, SLTT breaches, SCADA news, and several healthcare attacks. News SLTT Texas Department of Transportation had a data breach that impacted over 7,000 records.  This included employee information with PII including Social Security Numbers (SSN).   https://www.databreaches.net/another-texas-state-agency-data-breach-this-time-its-the-department-of-transportation/?web_view=true The Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) announced that 1.9 million people in the state who filed claims for compensation had their information publically available from March 2019 to January 2022.  https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/personal-information-two-million/?&web_view=true https://www.tdi.texas.gov/news/2022/tdi03242022.html https://www.tdi.texas.gov/data-security-event/additi...

Summary This week we saw a wide array of news about cyber security.   News SLTT Pellissippi State Community College was the victim of a ransomware attack that apparently was trying to encrypt data.  They report they did not pay the ransom and are working to figure out the extent of data that was accessed. https://www.securityweek.com/tennessee-community-college-suffers-ransomware-attack?&web_view=true https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/tennessee-college-hit-ransomware/ Infosec Institute is offering scholarships to 15 people from underrepresented groups in the infosec/cybersecurity industry.  It expands on their Accelerate Scholarship Program.   https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/infosec-announces-new/ https://www.infosecinstitute.com/scholarship-opportunities-for-aspiring-cybersecurity-professionals/?utm_source=newswire&utm_medium=pr&utm_campaign=accelerate&utm_content=women#women Clario researchers discovered an unsecured Mi...

 Summary News came this week of several new cyber security operation centers.  This is a great idea.  The harder we make it for the bad guys the more likely they are to try and figure out something else to do.  We also have some advisories about issues in Industrial Control Systems(ICS). News SLTT Several Puerto Rico government entities were struck by a cyberattack including the territories Senate.  Still not a lot of information at this time. https://www.securityweek.com/official-says-puerto-ricos-senate-targeted-cyberattack?&web_view=true The Port of Los Angeles has opened its own Cyber Resilience Center (CRC).  This CRC will ensure that the port is protected from cyber threats that might impact cargo shipments that come into one of the world's most active seaports.   https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/la-launches-cyber-resilience-center/ Power The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is looking at implementing a new regu...

  Summary Let me apologize for the long delay right upfront.  First, we had a round of Covid in the household in a person who is immune-compromised.  Next, I started a new semester in college and the workload was far greater than I expected.  Lastly, this is the start of the budget year for us and I had several projects that have demanded almost every second of my work time.  I hope to get back to weekly updates by November. Lots of news that covers:  health care, education, infrastructure, and SLTT governments around the world.  Since I am hitting the length limitations of Blogger, I will simply invite you to read and try and get caught up yourself.  News UC San Diego Health sued over breach In what is becoming a growing trend UC San Diego Health is being sued for failure to have proper data protection protocols.  The suit is citing breach of contract, negligence, and violating California consumer and medical privacy laws.  Specifically...

  Summary This week there was quite a bit of activity, including some that hit close to home.  These include ICS security news, more PulseConnect victims, a deep dive at a school system response, and a local hospital that was the victim of ransomware.  Lastly, there is quite a bit of legislative activity with the NATO and G7 summits dominating the news. News SolarWinds hack I have had some who follow my writings here and on social media claim that attributing the SolarWinds attack to Russia is somehow partisan or rash.  The argument seems to be that there is no real proof and instead, the hack was due to some perceived (but unattributed) lack in the operations of the current state of the nation's cyber defense strategy.  If you are one of those, I really implore you to get in to that discussion here.  What can we, the front-line workers in the cyber war front, do to be better at defense, response, and recovery? This week, FireEye, who first identified the h...