DataBreachToday.com

Stretched Agency Must Balance HIPAA Enforcement With Policing DEI in Healthcare
HHS investigators charged with protecting the civil rights and privacy of patients are now assigned to finding and stamping out diversity, equity and inclusion programs at universities and hospitals, with DEI deemed discriminatory under the Trump administration.

Experts Express Surprise Over Major Social Platform Falling Victim to DDoS Attacks
One of the world's biggest social networks continued to face intermittent outages Tuesday, apparently due to unsophisticated, distributed denial-of-service attacks. Experts said the attacks were traced to malware-infected devices - many based in the U.S. - and pro-Palestinian hacktivists.

Plankey Led Efforts to Engage Energy Sector in Cyber Prep During Trump's First Term
President Donald Trump has nominated a former Energy Department and National Security Council cybersecurity official to lead the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. National Guard and Coast Guard Veteran Sean Plankey has been tapped to replace Jen Easterly as the director of CISA.

Abuse Can Lead to Fraud, Impersonation Scams
Need a new voice? Artificial intelligence has you covered. Need to protect your own? That's another story. Some of the most widely used AI voice synthesis tools offer only superficial safeguards against misuse - if any at all, researchers found in a recent analysis.

Risk of Espionage and Disruption Key Risks, Lawmakers Warned
The British government is "extremely worried" about the Chinese and Russian cyberespionage and disruptive hacks, government officials told the U.K. Public Accounts Committee on Monday. The United Kingdom has faced a "substantial escalation in cyberthreats" in the last three years, lawmakers heard.

Getvisibility's AI Mesh Integration to Bolster Data Classification, Risk Management
Forcepoint is buying Getvisibility to integrate its AI Mesh technology, boosting data classification and risk assessment capabilities. The purchase fortifies Forcepoint's cybersecurity solutions for highly regulated industries, with full integration expected by year-end pending regulatory approval.

Risk of Espionage and Disruption Key Risks, Lawmakers Warned
The British government is "extremely worried" about the Chinese and Russian cyber espionage and disruptive hacks, government officials told the UK Public Accounts Committee on Monday. The United Kingdom has faced a "substantial escalation in cyberthreats" in the last three years, lawmakers heard.

'Dark Storm Team" Takes Responsibility for 4 Major Outages on Monday
Repeated outages Monday on social media platform X - formerly Twitter - are the result of a distributed denial of service attack, asserted platform owner Elon Musk in a sporadically available tweet. The social media platform experienced four significant outages.

Mental Health Provider, Kansas Clinics Are Latest Victims of Cybercriminal Gang
A Kansas-based medical practice and a Rhode Island-based provider of mental health and addiction counseling and related services are the latest victims in a growing list of healthcare organizations reporting major data breaches by cybercriminal gang Rhysida.

Ousted Social Security Official Accuses DOGE of Bypassing Critical Data Protections
A former top official at the Social Security Administration has alleged that members of Elon Musk's controversial task force ignored critical security protocols to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data while disregarding established procedures designed to protect it.

GetVisibility's AI Mesh Integration Bolsters Data Classification, Risk Management
Forcepoint is buying Getvisibility to integrate its AI mesh technology, boosting data classification and risk assessment capabilities. The purchase fortifies Forcepoint’s cybersecurity solutions for highly regulated industries, with full integration expected by year-end pending regulatory approval.

Self-Described Hacktivists Appear to Remain Moscow Foreign Policy Extension
Russia's use of high-profile online nuisance attacks as a psychology ploy designed to amplify Moscow's geopolitical agenda continues. As Europe has rallied to support Ukraine, self-proclaimed Russian hacktivists have trumpeted their targeting of the U.K. and EU member states, instead of the U.S.

Biden-Era Cyber Aid Programs Are Still Available, but the Future Is Uncertain
Even though rural hospitals and other small healthcare providers don't have deep pockets, cybercriminals continue to target them with ransomware, often causing serious disruption and affecting large swaths of patients. What can be done to help them strengthen cybersecurity?

White House Order Centralizes Crypto Seized Through Civil, Criminal Forfeitures
The Trump administration pledged to not spend taxpayer dollars on cryptocurrencies deposited into a federal "Strategic Bitcoin Reserve" created by a Thursday evening executive order. The government has collected an estimated 200,000 digital coins through criminal and civil forfeiture.

MDR Leaderboard Remains Unchanged as Vendors Pursue Generative AI, Detection as Code
Behemoth CrowdStrike joined pure-play vendors Expel and Red Canary atop Forrester's ranking of MDR vendors. MDR providers historically focused on identifying and mitigating security threats in real time, but as competition intensified, they recognized the need to differentiate their offerings.

Also: the Recent Ransomware Surge, Crypto Reserve Controversy
In this week's update, four ISMG editors discussed the recent surge in ransomware attacks, implications of the U.S. military's pause on cyber operations against Russia and President Trump's bold but controversial plan to create a national cryptocurrency reserve.

Artificial intelligence-based tools are among the most promising advancing technologies for healthcare sector organizations to help to address cybersecurity resource shortages, said Chris Tyberg, CISO of medical device and consumer health product manufacturer Abbott.