Cybersecurity is a vital and growing concern for small businesses, as they face different and evolving cyber threats that can threaten their existence. The Sophos 2024 Threat Report provides the latest insights and trends in cybersecurity, with an emphasis on how cyberattacks affect small businesses.
Through Executive Order No. 629, Governor Maura Healey established a strategic task force on artificial intelligence (AI) in the state. The order's goal is to strengthen the state's role in AI innovation and implementation, as well as to tackle the ethical and social issues that arise from the new technology.
According to WBUR, a Feb. 21 cyber attack on Change Healthcare, an electronic payment and medical claim platform, is costing Massachusetts-based healthcare providers who used the platform “$24 million a day.”
In a statement on March 5, American Hospital Association President and CEO Rick Pollack called the attack “the most significant and consequential incident of its kind against the U.S. health care system in history.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC has declared a new regulation that, starting right away, bans voice cloning technology that is often used in robocall scams that prey on consumers. The people who make these harmful robocalls can now face legal action from State Attorneys General all over the nation.
Blockchain analysis company Chainalysis reports that ransomware attackers got over $1 billion in cryptocurrency from victims in 2023, the highest ever and 44.4% more than in 2022. Ransomware is harmful software that locks the victim's data and asks for payment, usually in cryptocurrency, to unlock it.
Beware of the QR code con artists! That is the message from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC,) which says that scammers are using QR codes to trick you into giving up your personal information. Fake QR codes can fool you by looking like real ones, but they take you to nasty websites or apps.
Fallon Ambulance, once based in Boston before its closure in December 2022, faced a severe data breach months after going out of business, exposing the personal information of 911,000 individuals.
The breach targeted an archive of emergency patients' data maintained by Transformative Healthcare, Fallon's parent company.
On May 23, 2023, Bunker Hill Community College (BHCC) encountered a significant cybersecurity challenge. The school detected unusual activity that strongly suggested a ransomware attack on its systems.
According to the school, “BHCC immediately responded to the situation by taking the affected systems offline, contacting law enforcement, and engaging data security and privacy experts to conduct an investigation.
Imagine yourself seated at your desk, facing the frustrating challenge of locating a document buried deep within the archives, dating back to a considerable time ago. The document seems to have mysteriously vanished from its designated folder, and your quest involves an extensive and time-consuming search, with no guarantee of success.
This article originally appeared in Direct iT's new magazine, New England Cyber Defender, which you can read for free here.
Company Name: Aero Manufacturing
Name & Title: Greg Potcner, IT Manager
Location: Beverly, MA
Website: AeroManufacturing.