WEEK OF AUGUST 01, 2022

U.S. Justice Department probing cyber breach of federal court records system

• Matt Olsen, head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, alluded to the threat of cyber attacks by foreign nations as he told the U.S. House of Representative Judiciary Committee that the incident was a “significant concern.”
• Olsen made the remarks in response to questions from Representative Jerrold Nadler, the panel’s Democratic chairman, who said that “three hostile foreign actors” had attacked the courts’ document filing system.
• The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts in January 2021 said it was adding new security procedures to protect confidential or sealed records following an apparent compromise of its electronic case management and filing system.
• The Administrative Office, the judiciary’s administrative arm, in a statement on Thursday called cybersecurity a high priority and said it has been taking “significant actions to protect our systems and the sensitive information they contain.”

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US expands cybersecurity partnership with Ukraine

• The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced yesterday that it had signed a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) with the Ukrainian State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine (SSSCIP).
• Under the agreement, the two organizations will exchange information and best practices relating to cyber incidents.
• They will also share technical information about critical infrastructure security in real time, said Oleksandr Potii, deputy chairman of the SSSCIP. The MoC also authorizes the two agencies to conduct joint exercises and training sessions.

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City of Detroit retirees data breach causes concern

• Personal information including Social Security Numbers appear to have been exposed online.
• Derigiotis is a cyber-security expert and says oftentimes in data breaches a company unintentionally shares sensitive information. He says the retirement system for the City of Detroit or RSCD would do well to conduct a forensic analysis.
• David Derigiotis suggests putting a freeze on your credit with all of the credit bureaus, and to look at any open credit lines you have, to see if anyone has created a loan in your name – and possibly getting a fraud alert on top of it. and watch out for any unusual activity.

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Kansas MSP shuts down cloud services to fend off cyberattack

• A US managed service provider NetStandard suffered a cyberattack causing the company to shut down its MyAppsAnywhere cloud services, consisting of hosted Dynamics GP, Exchange, Sharepoint, and CRM services.
• According to an email sent to MyAppsAnywhere customers shared on Reddit, the company detected signs of a cyberattack on Tuesday morning and quickly shut down cloud services to prevent the attack’s spread.
• The company says that they have engaged their insurance provider to help identify the source of the attack and bring systems back online.

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OneTouchPoint discloses data breach impacting over 30 healthcare firms

• Mailing and printing services vendor OneTouchPoint has disclosed a data breach impacting more than 30 healthcare providers and health insurance carriers.
• The company revealed this week that it recently fell victim to a ransomware attack that has resulted in the compromise of personally identifiable information (PII) stored on its systems.
• OneTouchPoint says it found encrypted files on some of its systems on April 28 and immediately started investigating the incident. It later discovered that the attackers had accessed its network on April 27, but could not determine which files the attackers had accessed within its network.
• The company says it later determined that the compromised systems contained PII provided by its customers, including names, addresses, birth dates, date of service, description of service, diagnosis codes, information provided as part of a health assessment, and member ID.

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European lawmaker targeted with Cytrox Predator surveillance spyware

• A security audit by the European Parliament has unearthed attempts to plant high-end surveillance software on the phone of a Greek lawmaker and there are fresh reports linking the hack attempt to a known North Macedonia spyware vendor.
• Now, according to published reports out of Greece, the surveillance tool has been linked to an attempted hack of a phone belonging to Nikos Androulakis, a member of the European Parliament.
• Androulakis, who is head of the Greek socialist party, said he received a text message on his mobile phone that read “Let’s get a little serious about this, my friend, we have something to win” and contained a malicious URL capable of infecting the phone from a single click.
• Androulakis did not click on the link and the attempted hack was only discovered after the European Parliament started checking lawmakers’ devices for signs of infections from high-end surveillance spyware.

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