The National Security Agency (NSA) issued a Cybersecurity Advisory on October 20, 2020, entitled “Chinese State-Sponsored Actors Exploit Publicly Known Vulnerabilities,” alerting IT professionals to 25 vulnerabilities that Chinese state-sponsored hackers are using against U.S. businesses that “can be exploited to gain initial access to victim networks using products that are directly accessible from the internet and act as gateways to internal networks.” The Advisory is designed to share information with security professionals to urge…

Continuing its enforcement priority of assisting patients with obtaining access to their health records, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) recently settled its ninth case with a covered entity that it alleged failed to provide proper access of health records to a patient. NY Spine Medicine, a medical practice providing neurological and pain management series to patients in New York and Florida, agreed to settle allegations of failing to provide a patient access to her…

You probably heard about the recent hack of Twitter accounts that took place on July 15, 2020. The hackers took over several prominent Twitter accounts, which resulted in a scam that netted over $118,000 in bitcoin for the hackers. One of the most startling things about the cyberattack was that it was led by a 17-year-old along with his accomplices. The hackers took over the accounts of well-known individuals including Barack Obama, Kim Kardashian West,…

Secureworks issues an annual Incident Response Report that is very helpful in obtaining information on what types of incidents are occurring in order to become more resistant to threats. The 2020 IR Report was recently issued, and it contained some conclusions that made sense, while others were surprising. The Report, entitled Pandemic-Driven Change: The Effect of COVID-19 on Incident Response, recognized that the pandemic has changed the way business is done “with organizations shifting…

It has been widely reported that hackers are taking advantage of the pandemic to perpetrate scams and frauds. We have seen attacks against workers of companies through phishing emails that include an attachment or link offering information or access to specialized treatment for COVID-19 to lure people to click on them. Once they click on the link or attachment, the attacker infects the system with malware or ransomware. Cyber criminals know that people are concerned…