Tag Archive for: Dept.

Cal. Dept. of Public Health – NBC 7 San Diego

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On Friday, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) described the ongoing situation at Scripps Heath as a case of “ransomware attacks.”

Ransomware typically works by introducing software that encrypts a user’s data and holds the decryption key until the ransom is paid. Once that happens, a typical recourse is to reformat and restore the system from backups, a SDSU cyber warfare and cyber terrorism expert Steven Andrés told NBC in 2018

The local health-care provider, which operates five hospitals in San Diego, along with a series of clinics, was hit by a cyberattack over the weekend. Patients and staffers have been unable to access records, email and other technology for six days.

NBC 7’s Dana Griffin spoke to a patient whose wait for surgery has been extended by the cyberattack.

During that time, Scripps Health and county officials have been tight-lipped about the situation, other than to say that experts were working on the situation and that governmental agencies were aware of the incident. Scripps said it had proactively taken part of it’s systems down: “Upon discovering the outage, we immediately initiated an investigation and took steps to contain the outage, including by taking a significant portion of our network offline as a proactive security measure.”

In that same statement, Scripps described what was happening as “a network outage that resulted in a disruption to our IT systems.” On Friday, however, an official with the California Department of Public Health sent NBC 7 the following statement:

“The ransomware attacks were reported to the department. As required by state and federal law, hospitals are required to provide proper patient care at all times, including in any emergency situation. CDPH is actively monitoring the hospitals impacted. These hospitals are operational and caring for patients using appropriate emergency protocols in inpatient areas of the hospital. The department has authority to involuntarily suspend facility licenses in extreme circumstances that pose immediate risk to patient safety. Facilities reliance on emergency protocols does not automatically warrant such action.“

Scripps Health…

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‘Critical’ that Pompeo brief senators on SolarWinds hack at State Dept.

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The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is calling on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to brief senators on the massive SolarWinds hack by suspected Russian hackers and its effect on the State Department.



a man wearing a suit and tie: Top Democrat: 'Critical' that Pompeo brief senators on SolarWinds hack at State Dept.

© Getty Images
Top Democrat: ‘Critical’ that Pompeo brief senators on SolarWinds hack at State Dept.

“It is critical that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee receive a briefing on the extent of the security breach and the efforts that the Department is taking to mitigate its impacts and defend against future attacks,” Sen. Bob Menendez (N.J.) wrote to Pompeo in a letter Wednesday.

“Furthermore, it is essential that critical sectors within private industry and the American public more broadly understand the nature of the threat that our nation faces from the Kremlin, and their persistent exploitation of cyberspace, the Internet, and social media for their malign ends,” he added.

The State Department is one of several federal agencies breached by a cyberattack into third-party software developer SolarWinds that was revealed last week. Officials have called the hack, which is believed to have originated as far back as March, a “grave” risk to U.S. national security.

The State Department has yet to provide any specifics on the hack, and Menendez criticized Pompeo for his silence on the matter.

“While several other cabinet agencies that are victims of this cybersecurity breach have publicly acknowledged having been attacked, to date the Department of State has been silent on whether its computer, communication and information technology systems were compromised,” Menendez said in Wednesday’s letter.

A State Department spokesperson said the agency is working with the Cyber Unified Coordination Group (UCG), the administration’s coordinated effort between the FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Office of the Director for National Intelligence.

“We are working with the Cyber Unified Coordination Group (UCG) lead agencies and appropriate partners to determine the full scope and impact of these incidents,” the spokesperson said, and referred all other questions to UCG.

CISA did not immediately return a request for comment about…

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Chinese Hackers Made Over 40,000 Cyber Attacks on India in Past 5 Days: Maha Cyber Dept – News18

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Chinese Hackers Made Over 40,000 Cyber Attacks on India in Past 5 Days: Maha Cyber Dept  News18
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Justice Dept. charges four Chinese military hackers over the Equifax data breach – TechCrunch

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  1. Justice Dept. charges four Chinese military hackers over the Equifax data breach  TechCrunch
  2. U.S. says China stole Americans’ personal data in Equifax breach  Chicago Tribune
  3. Justice Department Says China Was Behind Equifax Data Breach in 2017  The Daily Beast
  4. Chinese Hackers Indicted in Atlanta Over 2017 Equifax Data Breach | Daily Report  Law.com
  5. Equifax breach: How Chinese army hackers allegedly stole personal info  USA TODAY
  6. View full coverage on read more

“data breach” – read more