Category Archives: Health Care

The Cyberspace Solarium Commission pushed some major policies into law. So what now?

Posted on by

A little more than a year removed from its role in advancing some of the most significant cybersecurity legislation ever enacted, the Cyberspace Solarium Commission is transforming into version 2.0 of itself. With some of its key recommendations now law — such as the creation of the Office of the National Cyber Director in the White House — the remnant of the congressionally created panel is turning its attention to tracking how those ideas are implemented, while studying some of the issues it didn’t get to fully examine before releasing its final report. Those areas of study include protecting the water, maritime transport and health care sectors, as well as strengthening the federal and private sector workforce and ensuring plans to avert disruptions to the economy caused by cyberattacks. Now housed within the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) think tank, the commission’s 2.0 work should take another two years, […]

The post The Cyberspace Solarium Commission pushed some major policies into law. So what now? appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading The Cyberspace Solarium Commission pushed some major policies into law. So what now?→

Forescout acquires medical IoT security company CyberMDX

Posted on by

Silicon Valley cybersecurity company Forescout Technologies said Tuesday that it is acquiring CyberMDX, a medical-device security company known for its research into potential cyberthreats against health care technology. CyberMDX is a natural fit for Forescout, which focuses on securing connected devices and operational technology (OT) for large organizations — including what the industry calls the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT). Terms of the deal were not disclosed. “Cybersecurity for IoMT, much like cybersecurity for OT devices, requires specific expertise and technologies,” Forescout CEO Wael Mohamed said. “We are pleased to have the CyberMDX team join Forescout as we continue delivering new capabilities on our market-leading platform and grow our R&D center.” Research by CyberMDX has been responsible for shedding light on critical vulnerabilities in widely used medical imaging devices, patient monitors, anesthesia machines and infusion pumps. Forescout’s platform specializes in “device intelligence and network fabric technology,” or finding and classifying […]

The post Forescout acquires medical IoT security company CyberMDX appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading Forescout acquires medical IoT security company CyberMDX→

Telehealth app Doxy.me is fixing a leak that exposed patient data to Facebook, Google

Posted on by

Telehealth platform Doxy.me is fixing an issue that allowed three third-party firms to access the names of some patients’ providers, the company told CyberScoop after it notified the company of the problem. The company, which self-reports as holding 30% of the growing U.S. telemedicine market and is currently used by over 1 million providers worldwide, appeared to also be sharing IP addresses and unique device identification numbers with Google, Facebook and the marketing software company HubSpot, privacy researcher Zach Edwards found after examining the platform. The sensitive user data was accessible when patients clicked on a link to the platform’s “virtual waiting room” service, which connects patients with medical professionals. Providers can choose the name of their waiting room, which is often their name or the name of their medical practice. (In a sample observed by CyberScoop, the URL included the name of a provider.) It appears that Doxy.me tried […]

The post Telehealth app Doxy.me is fixing a leak that exposed patient data to Facebook, Google appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading Telehealth app Doxy.me is fixing a leak that exposed patient data to Facebook, Google→

Industry group sounds alarm over ‘Tardigrade’ malware targeting biomanufacturing sector

Posted on by

A group of likely foreign government-sponsored hackers is behind cyberattacks on two bio-manufacturing companies that occurred this year, using a kind of malware capable of operating with independence within a network, an industry group warned. The Bioeconomy ​​Information Sharing and Analysis Center (BIO-(ISAC) dubbed the malware “Tardigrade” after the resilient micro-animal, and said it looks like the work of an advanced persistent threat group, a term that most often refers to government-backed attackers. Researchers first investigated the hacking tool this spring following a ransomware attack. The actor behind Tardigrade doesn’t just appear to want payment to decrypt systems, though. Rather, it could be primarily a tool for intellectual property theft, BIO-ISAC said on Monday. The biomanufacturing sector encompasses makers of coronavirus vaccines and treatments, although BIO-ISAC has declined to say whether the firms hit in the spring and then in October were involved in battling COVID-19. “Bioeconomy” is a term […]

The post Industry group sounds alarm over ‘Tardigrade’ malware targeting biomanufacturing sector appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading Industry group sounds alarm over ‘Tardigrade’ malware targeting biomanufacturing sector→

Ransomware fueled record year for UK cyber response

Posted on by

The U.K. National Cyber Security Centre fought a record number of digital intrusions in the past year, the agency reported, driven by a surge in ransomware and hackers targeting the health care sector during the COVID-19 pandemic. Over a 12-month period ending in September, the agency responded to 777 incidents, a more than 7% increase, the center said in its Nov. 17 annual report. Ransomware kept the center busy, with officials handling the same number of incidents in the first four months of 2021 that it did in all of 2020, itself triple the number of incidents in 2019. That made ransomware the “most significant cyber threat facing the U.K. this year,” the report states. Still, businesses aren’t taking it seriously enough, National Cyber Security Centre CEO Lindy Cameron wrote. “In my view it is now the most immediate cyber security threat to U.K. businesses and one that I think […]

The post Ransomware fueled record year for UK cyber response appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading Ransomware fueled record year for UK cyber response→

Canadian hospitals recovering from breach that forced thousands of appointment cancellations

Posted on by

Intruders accessed patient and employee data after infiltrating health-releated IT systems in a breach that’s only now coming into focus. A security incident affecting the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, first detected Oct. 30, took down multiple health networks, leading to the cancellation of thousands of appointments, including for chemotherapy treatments. The regional Eastern Health authority, which employees 13,000 people, on Tuesday announced that its email system was again functioning, more than a week after the initial compromise became known. “As part of the on-going investigation into a cyberattack that impacted health care IT systems in Newfoundland and Labrador, it has been determined that some personal information and personal health information was accessed from the systems,” the provincial government said in a Nov. 9 news release. “A review is ongoing to determine if any other information is affected in the incident and further updates will be provided as appropriate.” Hackers […]

The post Canadian hospitals recovering from breach that forced thousands of appointment cancellations appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading Canadian hospitals recovering from breach that forced thousands of appointment cancellations→

Emergent ransomware gang FIN12 strikes hospitals, moves quickly against big targets

Posted on by

A Russian-speaking ransomware gang in recent months has aggressively targeted North American organizations with more than $300 million in revenue, with a ruthless focus on the health care sector amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new findings. The threat intelligence firm Mandiant published details Thursday about a group it calls FIN12, a gang that moves quickly and uses an array of established hacking tools to infiltrate its targets. Over the past year, hackers have kept investigators busy, accounting for 20% of the ransomware incidents that Mandiant has responded to, with the next highest attackers at 5%, according to Kimberly Goody, the company’s director of cyber crime analysis. “They have a significantly higher cadence of attacks from our perspective,” she said. “We also see that, unlike other threat actors, this group has also aggressively pursued victims in critical sectors like health care, even during the pandemic, which had resulted in several actors saying that […]

The post Emergent ransomware gang FIN12 strikes hospitals, moves quickly against big targets appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading Emergent ransomware gang FIN12 strikes hospitals, moves quickly against big targets→

Researchers show how to tamper with medication in popular infusion pumps using software flaws

Posted on by

McAfee security researchers on Tuesday said they had found multiple vulnerabilities in infusion pump software that, under certain conditions, a skilled hacker could use to alter a patient’s medication dose to a potentially unsafe level. The vulnerabilities are in equipment made by multinational vendor B. Braun that are used in pediatric and adult health care facilities in the United States. While there are no reports of malicious exploitation of the flaws, the research illustrates the challenge of securing devices conceived decades ago from 21st-century digital threats. The findings come as the health care sector reckons with a series of ransomware attacks that hit aging hospital computer networks during the pandemic. Medical devices “remain vulnerable to legacy issues that have persisted for many years and have exceptionally slow update or upgrade cycles,” said Steve Povolny, who heads the Advanced Threat Research team at McAfee. In a statement, B. Braun said the […]

The post Researchers show how to tamper with medication in popular infusion pumps using software flaws appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading Researchers show how to tamper with medication in popular infusion pumps using software flaws→

BlackBerry’s popular operating system for medical devices affected by critical vulnerabilities, drawing fed warnings

Posted on by

A critical set of software flaws first revealed in April also affects code made by BlackBerry that is used in countless devices in the medical, automotive and energy sectors, the technology vendor confirmed on Tuesday. A hacker who exploits the so-called BadAlloc software vulnerabilities, which Microsoft researchers uncovered, could cause devices running the software to crash. In BlackBerry’s case, the attacker would need to first gain access to a targeted network and then go after devices that are exposed to the internet. The affected software is BlackBerry’s QNX Real-Time Operating System, a suite of software that manages data across a network. It’s unclear just how many devices are running the affected BlackBerry software. The firm said last year that its QNX software was embedded in more than 175 million cars alone. A BlackBerry spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “These vulnerabilities may introduce risks for certain […]

The post BlackBerry’s popular operating system for medical devices affected by critical vulnerabilities, drawing fed warnings appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading BlackBerry’s popular operating system for medical devices affected by critical vulnerabilities, drawing fed warnings→