Tag Archive for: faces

TikTok faces national security review in Canada: minister

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TikTok faces national security review in Canada: minister

by AFP Staff Writers

Ottawa (AFP) Mar 15, 2024






Canada is conducting a national security review of Chinese-owned TikTok’s proposed expansion of the popular video app in this country, Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said Friday.

In a teleconference from Italy after meeting with his G7 counterparts, Champagne said the review under the Investment Canada Act had been quietly initiated in September 2023.

“We have launched a national security review (of TikTok),” he told reporters.

“Once we have completed that,” he said, “we’ll inform Canadians about any actions that we decide to take with respect to that particular topic.”

“I’ll have more to say when our review is completed,” the minister added without saying when that would be.

Champagne noted a March 2023 announcement that foreign investments in Canada’s interactive digital media sector would face “intense scrutiny.”

Those found to be “propagating disinformation or manipulating information in a manner that is injurious to Canada’s national security” could face mitigation measures or even a ban, according to the policy statement.

The Canadian review is not related to a proposed US bill that would force its Chinese owners to sell or see it banned in the United States.

That bill is partly fuelled by concerns over Chinese national security laws that compel organizations to assist with intelligence gathering.

TikTok is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese technology firm ByteDance Ltd.

“We’re watching, of course, the debate going on in the United States,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday after the US House of Representatives passed the bill, which still needs approval from the Senate.

Ottawa banned TikTok from federal government mobile devices in February 2023.

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Massive health care hack faces federal scrutiny

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  • ASSOCIATED PRESS Pages from the United Healthcare website are displayed on a computer screen, on Feb. 29, in New York. Federal civil rights investigators are looking into whether protected health information was exposed in a recent cyberattack against Change Healthcare, a massive U.S. health care technology company owned by UnitedHealth Group.

    ASSOCIATED PRESS

    Pages from the United Healthcare website are displayed on a computer screen, on Feb. 29, in New York. Federal civil rights investigators are looking into whether protected health information was exposed in a recent cyberattack against Change Healthcare, a massive U.S. health care technology company owned by UnitedHealth Group.

Federal civil rights investigators are looking into whether protected health information was exposed in the recent cyberattack on Change Healthcare.

The Office for Civil Rights said today that it also will examine whether Change Healthcare followed laws protecting patient privacy.

Change Healthcare provides technology used to submit and process insurance claims — and handles about 14 billion transactions a year.

The investigation was spurred by the “unprecedented magnitude” of the attack, Office for Civil Rights Director Melanie Fontes Rainer said in a letter.

The Office for Civil Rights, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, enforces federal rules that establish privacy and security requirements for patient health information.

UnitedHealth Group, which owns Change Healthcare, said it would cooperate. Spokesman Eric Hausman added that UnitedHealth Group is working with law enforcement to investigate the extent of the attack.

Attackers gained access to some of Change Healthcare’s information technology systems last month, disrupting billing and care-authorization systems across the country.

The American Hospital Association said recently that some patients have seen delays in getting prescriptions, and hospitals have had issues processing claims, billing patients and checking insurance coverage.

Change Healthcare said today that all of its major pharmacy and payment systems were back online. Last week, the company said it expects to start reestablishing connections to…

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Ukrainian national faces up to 20 years in prison for his role in Zeus, IcedID malware schemes

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Ukrainian national faces up to 20 years in prison for his role in Zeus, IcedID malware schemes

Pierluigi Paganini
February 17, 2024

A Ukrainian national pleaded guilty to his role in the Zeus and IcedID operations, which caused tens of millions of dollars in losses.

Ukrainian national Vyacheslav Igorevich Penchukov has pleaded guilty to his key roles in the Zeus and IcedID malware operations.

“Vyacheslav Igorevich Penchukov was a leader of two prolific malware groups that infected thousands of computers with malicious software. These criminal groups stole millions of dollars from their victims and even attacked a major hospital with ransomware, leaving it unable to provide critical care to patients for over two weeks,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “Before his arrest and extradition to the United States, the defendant was a fugitive on the FBI’s most wanted list for nearly a decade. Today’s guilty pleas should serve as a clear warning: the Justice Department will never stop in its pursuit of cybercriminals.”

On October 2022, Swiss police arrested Penchukov in Geneva, also known as Tank, which is one of the leaders of the JabberZeus cybercrime group.

The man was extradited to the United States in 2023, he was included in the FBI’s “Most Wanted” list and has been sought for 10 years.

Zeus Penchukov FBI wanted

In 2012, the Ukrainian national Vyacheslav Igorevich Penchukov was accused of being a member of a cybercrime gang known as JabberZeus crew. JabberZeus was a small cybercriminal ring that was targeting SMBs with a custom-made version of the Zeus banking trojan. At the time, DoJ accused Penchukov of coordinating the exchange of stolen banking credentials and money mules and received alerts once a bank account had been compromised.

The popular investigator Brian Krebs reported that Gary Warner, director of research in computer forensics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, noted in 2014 that Tank told co-conspirators in a JabberZeus chat on July 22, 2009 that his daughter, Miloslava, was and told him Miloslava birth weight.

Warner explained that Tank was identified by searching Ukrainian…

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Lurie Children’s Hospital faces computer network outage amid nationwide cybersecurity alert

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Computer outage impacts Lurie Childrens Hospital

The Chicago areas largest childrens hospital is currently grappling with a computer network outage, coinciding with a nationwide alert regarding cyber attacks targeting hospitals.

CHICAGO – The Chicago area’s largest children’s hospital is currently grappling with a computer network outage, coinciding with a nationwide alert regarding cyber attacks targeting hospitals.

This is not the first time Lurie Children’s Hospital has faced data-related issues. Last year, the hospital experienced a leak of social security numbers, names, birthdays, and addresses.

Concerns arose on Wednesday morning when parents noticed online irregularities. A message on the hospital’s website indicates an ongoing network outage affecting the internet, emails, phone service, and access to MyChart, a platform crucial for patients containing important health information, the ability to schedule doctor’s visits, and details on upcoming procedures.

Sources informed FOX 32 that a memo was circulated, stating that phone, email, and online medical records were disabled as a precautionary measure.

While Lurie Children’s Hospital has not confirmed any hacking or compromise of their systems, an expert sheds light on potential scenarios.

“It could have been a ransomware attack, where you have a group of individuals who targeted an institution, shut down their system and said, ‘hey if you don’t pay me X amount, we’re not going to turn things back on.’ It could be foreign nationals, quite possibly the Chinese. I know that’s been floated recently in testimony this week before Congress. Their efforts to penetrate and be able to disable US infrastructure is becoming quite rampant,” said Ross Rice, former FBI agent.

Efforts to obtain clarification from Lurie Children’s Hospital about the situation have been made, but as of now, there has been no response.

An alert on the hospital’s website states that they are actively working to resolve the issue.

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