INSIGHTS
Valuable insights and thought leadership.
- All
- Breadcrumb News
- In The News
- Insights
10 Cybersecurity Resolutions for 2018
Let’s face it: 2017 was a rough year for cybersecurity.
Large-scale hacks were revealed one after another in the year that nothing seemed safe. These cyberattacks highlighted the alarming vulnerability of our personal information in a world where everything is stored online and subject to hacking.
Proposed Senate bill would fine or jail execs that conceal data breaches
A reintroduced Senate bill is addressing a timely topic. The bill aims to make it a crime, punishable by up to five years in prison, if companies knowingly conceal a data breach. After a year of high-profile cyber attacks, like the Equifax breach, and news that Uber concealed a breach impacting 57 million users for a year, Sen. Bill Nelson, is reviving a previously unsuccessful bill called the “Data Security and Breach Notification Act.”
2017 Report Reveals 305% Increase In Breached Record Exposure
While large-scale breaches like Equifax, Deloitte, and Yahoo may have dominated headlines in 2017, there were countless other data breaches that occurred and went largely unreported last year.
In fact, a recently released 2017 data breach report from Risk Based Security (RBS), a provider of real time information and risk analysis tools, revealed a 305% increase in the number of records exposed in data breaches in the past year compared to 2016.
Concerned US States Buying Cyber Insurance
The growing threat of hackers and cybercriminals targeting government agencies has led a number of states to purchase cyber insurance to protect themselves – and their constituents.
As massive data breaches like Yahoo and Equifax dominate news headlines, a growing number of businesses have rushed to purchase cyber insurance policies. Last year, insurers wrote $1.35 billion in premiums, a 35% jump from 2015, according to Fitch Ratings.
Now, US states have begun following suit. In a survey of state CIOs, 38% reported having some type of cyber insurance this year, compared to 20% in 2015.
California health system fined $2 million for making patient data public online – twice.
Santa Barbara, California-based Cottage Health System has agreed to a $2 million settlement with the state attorney general resolving allegations that the health system failed to implement “basic, reasonable safeguards to protect patient medical information”, which led to the exposure of nearly 55,000 medical records.
According to California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, the health system’s failure to protect patient medical information violated state and federal privacy laws. The state alleged the health system failed to adequately protect patient records.
In December 2013, Cottage Health was notified its patients’ records were accessible online, as one of its servers that contained 50,000 patient records was left unencrypted. Worse yet, there was no password protection, firewalls or permissions to prevent unauthorized access. Exposed information included medical history, diagnosis, laboratory test results, and medications.
IT Strategy is now Breadcrumb Cybersecurity
IT Strategy is proud to announce that as of December 1st, 2017, it has officially changed its name to Breadcrumb …
