Tag Archive for: NPR

Schools don’t have great cybersecurity, and hackers have caught on : NPR


School cyberattacks are on the rise.
School cyberattacks are on the rise.

Scott Elder has a pretty typical morning routine. He wakes up at 7 a.m., drinks coffee and feeds the dogs, Bella (a rat terrier) and Spencer (a Chihuahua). But on Jan. 12, 2022, Elder’s routine was interrupted by a concerning phone call.

Elder is the superintendent of Albuquerque Public Schools in New Mexico, and the call came from his district’s IT department, saying they had found some sort of computer virus.

He recalls thinking, “Oh, we’ve got a bug in the system and they found it so they’ll just kill it and we’ll be done, right?”

The bug was in the student records system. So Elder’s IT staff shut that network down. But that meant teachers wouldn’t have access to basic information about the almost 70,000 students enrolled in New Mexico’s largest school district. Educators couldn’t take attendance, wouldn’t know children’s bus routes and were locked out of grading systems.

Meanwhile, IT staff was desperately trying to figure out whether the computer virus had spread to their health records, security system and payroll.

Over the course of the morning, Elder began to understand the enormity of the situation.

“I would say that I went from mildly disturbed at 7 a.m., to very concerned by 9 a.m., to sick to my stomach by noon because I was beginning to realize that this was not a one-day event, that we had a real problem.”

Then came the ransom demand for more than a million dollars.

School systems of every size have been hit by cyberattacks, from urban districts like Los Angeles and Atlanta, to rural districts in Pennsylvania and Illinois. And the problem has been growing.

While it’s hard to know exactly how many K-12 school systems have been targeted by hackers, an analysis by the cyber security firm Emsisoft estimates that 45 school districts were attacked in 2022. In 2023, Emsisoft found that number more than doubled, to 108.

“The education sector has been and continues to be very heavily…

Source…

Inside Russia’s attempts to hack Ukrainian military operations : NPR


In this photo illustration, the 502 Bad Gateway message is seen on Ministry of Defence of Ukraine official webpage displayed on a smartphone screen and flag of Ukraine in the background.

SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images


hide caption

toggle caption

SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

In this photo illustration, the 502 Bad Gateway message is seen on Ministry of Defence of Ukraine official webpage displayed on a smartphone screen and flag of Ukraine in the background.

SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian intelligence officials have revealed details to NPR about an attempt by Russian state hackers to penetrate Ukrainian military planning operations systems.

The hackers from Russian military intelligence captured Android tablet devices used by Ukrainian officers on the front lines in an attempt to spy, according to a report published by the Security Service of Ukraine’s Cyber Security Situation Center.

“We saw that there were attempts to penetrate these systems,” said Illia Vitiuk, the head of the Cybersecurity Department of Ukraine’s Security Services, also known as the SBU. Vitiuk spoke to NPR in an exclusive interview in Kyiv on Wednesday.

“Our enemy is extremely focused on getting insight into these systems,” he continued.

The Ukrainian military uses multiple tools for situational awareness to track Russian troop positions and gather other intelligence from the land, air and sea. Those include Delta, a military platform developed by the Defense Technology Innovation and Development Center within Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, and Kropvya, a defense mapping software made by Ukrainian NGO Army SOS. Developers working on these systems in Kyiv are becoming increasingly aware of Russia’s focus on them, and are declining to openly discuss the platforms and how they work to…

Source…

Cyberattacks on hospitals ‘should be considered a regional disaster,’ researchers find : NPR


Cyberattacks on hospitals “should be considered a regional disaster,” a study finds.

Busà Photography/Getty Images


hide caption

toggle caption

Busà Photography/Getty Images

Cyberattacks on hospitals “should be considered a regional disaster,” a study finds.

Busà Photography/Getty Images

It was early May in 2021 when patients flooded the emergency room at the University of California San Diego Health Center.

“We were bringing in backup staff, our wait times had gone haywire, the whole system was overloaded,” said Dr. Christopher Longhurst, UC San Diego’s chief medical officer and digital officer. “We felt it.”

But the crunch wasn’t the result of a massive accident or the latest wave of patients infected by a new coronavirus variant. The influx was the direct result of a ransomware attack, a costly and unfortunately now common form of cybercrime in which hackers lock down their victims’ files and demand a ransom, often millions of dollars, to unlock them.

In reality, UC San Diego wasn’t the target. Their systems were intact. Instead, hackers had breached the hospital down the street, Scripps Health. The culprits not only took over the hospital’s digital records system and its entire computer network, but stole millions of patients’ confidential data. Scripps struggled for weeks to get back online, and is still dealing with the aftermath, having paid $3.5 million in a legal settlement earlier this year with patients whose data was exposed.

Cyberattacks on hospitals ‘should be considered a regional disaster,’ a study finds

Previously, there’s been very little concrete data or analysis breaking down the direct impacts of a cyberattack on a hospital, let alone an entire region of healthcare providers. Most evidence of harm, including deaths, remains anecdotal and has been the subject of lawsuits, including one…

Source…

Congress is about to ban TikTok from U.S. government phones in spending bill : NPR


TikTok would be banned from most U.S. government devices under a government spending bill Congress unveiled early Tuesday, the latest push by American lawmakers against the Chinese-owned social media app.

Michael Dwyer/AP


hide caption

toggle caption

Michael Dwyer/AP

TikTok would be banned from most U.S. government devices under a government spending bill Congress unveiled early Tuesday, the latest push by American lawmakers against the Chinese-owned social media app.

Michael Dwyer/AP

Having TikTok on a device issued by the federal government is about to become illegal under a sprawling spending bill for the upcoming fiscal year released by lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday. It is expected to become law in the coming days to avert a partial government shutdown.

While the Chinese-owned app is already not allowed on many federal government devices, the measure in the new spending bill expands the prohibition. The ban will likely result in a hit to TikTok’s reputation at a time when the Biden administration is still attempting to complete a national security review of the popular app.

TikTok is used by more than 100 million monthly active users in the U.S. alone, and its ability to create instant viral hits has put it at the forefront of internet culture, though concerns about data security have long dogged the app.

If you count yourself among its users and you’re wondering how this crackdown might affect you, here is what you need to know:

Is this going to affect my use of TikTok?

Probably not — unless you’re a federal government employee who uses a work phone to browse TikTok. The White House, the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department already prohibit staff from having TikTok on government-issued devices, so this ban just extends the rule for all U.S. government employees….

Source…