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A Fresno State hard drive containing personal data for about 15,000 people was stolen in January, the university said Tuesday.The hard drive was reported missing on January 12, a theft the school believes took place in late December in a break-in at the school’s athletic department while the campus was closed for winter break.

Last month, reports surfaced that more information than previously thought may have been exposed in Equifax's massive data breach, and now, the company has confirmed it. Equifax said Thursday that 2.4 million more people than it previously believed were affected by its massive data breach last year, the second time it has revised up estimates of the number of Americans whose information was stolen.In October of last year, Equifax revealed that forensics investigators had concluded that 2.5 million more US consumers were affected by the data breach it revealed in September, bringing the total number at that time to 145.5 million. This new revelation raises the number of victims in the US to 147.9 million people.

A new report from Verizon found that organizations across multiple industries compromised mobile data security due to a lack of awareness about threats - or by placing a higher priority on getting products to market. The first annual Verizon Mobile Security Index 2018 seeks to raise awareness of the current mobile security landscape, and provide recommendations for protecting the mobile enterpriseMore than 60 percent of respondents said a "lack of understanding of threats and solutions" was a barrier to mobile security, but nearly one-third "admitted to sacrificing mobile security to improve business performance."

With the emergence of a new tax fraud scheme, The Internal Revenue Service is urging tax professionals to step up security and beware of phishing emails that can secretly download malicious software that can help cybercriminals steal client data.Only a few days into the filing season, a scam was identified that began with cybercriminals stealing data from several tax practitioners’ computers and filing fraudulent tax returns.Tax refund fraud affects hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of U.S. citizens annually. Victims usually first learn of the crime after having their returns rejected because scammers beat them to it.

Cybercrime is expected to cost Californians big-time in 2018. Using publicly available data from the FBI and the Insurance Information Institute, researchers at Website Builder Expert have predicted individuals in the Golden State will lose $329 million over the course of this year.Second place, New York, is expected to lose $139.4 million. Third place, Florida, is expected to lose $111.7 million to cybercriminals this year. These figures put California far ahead of all other states for cybercrime losses.

Businesses reported all-time high levels of fraud, cyber and security incidents during 2017, according to senior corporate executives surveyed worldwide for the 2017/18 Kroll Annual Global Fraud & Risk Report.About 84% of companies surveyed worldwide experienced a fraud incident in 2017, according to the report. The proportion of executives reporting that their companies fell victim to at least one instance of fraud over the past 12 months increased to 84%, from 82% in the previous year. Levels of reported fraud have steadily risen every year since 2012, when the reported occurrence was just 61%.

Indiana hospital system, Hancock Health, said it paid hackers 4 bitcoin, or about $47,000, to unlock it’s network after a ransomware attack on January 11, 2018.Hackers compromised a third-party vendor’s administrative account to the hospital’s remote-access portal and launched SamSam ransomware, a ransomware variant which encrypts data files on the systems and uses a private key to unlock them. It quickly infected the hospital’s IT system by locking out data and changing the names of more than 1,400 files to "I'm sorry."

OnePlus, the smartphone manufacturer behind a popular line of Android phones, has reported a credit card breach affecting up to 40,000 users at oneplus.net. Customers who entered their credit card data on the website between mid-November 2017 and January 11, 2018 could be at risk.The announcement of the data breach followed numerous reports from customers over the weekend of January 13, 2018 related to fraudulent charges appearing on their accounts. The company immediately launched an investigation and learned one of its systems was attacked. A malicious script was injected into the payment page code to steal credit card information as it was being entered.

21st Century Oncology has agreed to pay a $2.3 million fine to the Department of Health and Human Services for a 2015 data breach that impacted more than 2.2 million patients.According to court documents, the national cancer care provider headquartered in Fort Myers, Florida, has also agreed to class action lawsuits filed in 2016. 21st Century Oncology operates 179 treatment centers across 17 states.The breach of the company's network SQL database and theft of the medical data and Social Security numbers of millions of patients is believed to have occurred as early as October 3, 2015.