Ardent Health Services, headquartered in Nashville, Tenn., and operating in six different states, fell victim to a ransomware attack in late November that has taken its entire network offline. Some 30 hospitals have been affected by this ransomware attack. While the attack didn’t disrupt patient care in Ardent hospitals, those in need of emergency medical…

The City of Oakland disclosed last week a ransomware attack, the security breach began on February 8, 2023. In an abundance of caution, the City of Oakland has taken impacted systems offline, while they work to secure the impacted infrastructure. The Information Technology Department notified local authorities and launched an investigation into the incident to…

Founded in 1985 and located in Yonkers, the organization provides emergency transportation services, as well as emergency and non-emergency response services to hospitals, private care facilities, and correctional institutions. Empress EMS has more than 200 employees. In a data breach notice posted on its website, Empress EMS reveals that on July 14, 2022, it identified…

In Tennessee, the website for unemployment benefits remained down Thursday morning after the vendor, Geographic Solutions Inc., told the state Sunday that service would be interrupted. Some 12,000 Tennesseans rely on the unemployment program, and for now, they’re not getting their payments. The company said that it expects Tennessee’s system to be back online before…

The State Auditor’s Office reassured 60,000 state employees on Monday that their pay would be deposited on Friday, WSAZ-TV reported. State officials learned two weeks ago that the attack took West Virginia’s payroll time and leave accounting system off line. Since then, the auditor’s staff has worked with payroll administrators in affected state agencies to…

The Delta-Montrose Electric Association (DMEA) is a member-owned and locally controlled rural electric cooperative that serves more than 34,000 customers in Colorado’s Montrose, Delta, and Gunnison counties. It is part of Touchstone Energy Cooperatives, a cooperative federation that has over 750 members across the United States. DMEA last week revealed that it had discovered a…

Seemingly every day, a new organization announces they’ve been hit by a ransomware attack. The agnostic nature of ransomware leaves no industry immune to vulnerabilities. Be it school systems, healthcare providers, or government agencies, the battlegrounds are increasingly widespread. Companies should operate not on a basis of if they’ll be hit, but when. Executives and…

In a post on a publicly accessible hacker forum, a group calling itself “Desorden” claimed to have stolen databases and other files from breached Acer India servers. The hackers shared a link to a sample of the stolen data and they promised to leak more once they have analyzed it. They also published a video…

Recently I spoke with Ryan Chapman of the SANS Institute, author of the upcoming SANS course FOR528: Ransomware for Incident Responders, on how to better prepare for ransomware. That preparation comes in two forms: planning how you would respond to a successful ransomware attack and overcoming barriers to hardening your network against them. Planning for…