Lloyd’s to end insurance coverage for state cyber attacks
Insurance market Lloyd’s of London has indicated that it will move to require its insurance groups to exclude “catastrophic” nation state cyber attacks from cyber insurance policies from 31 March 2023. According to the Wall Street Journal, which was first to report the story, the change will supposedly ensure that the scope of cyber insurance policies is made clear to buyers, and is being made because Lloyd’s believes the impact of state-backed attacks is a “systemic risk”. The newspaper cited a 16 August notice written by underwriting director Tony Chaudhry. Chaudhry said Lloyd’s remained strongly supportive of cyber insurance, but that such policies needed to be appropriately managed given the fast-evolving nature of the threat landscape.
Misconfigured Meta Pixel exposed healthcare data of 1.3M patients
U.S. healthcare provider Novant Health has disclosed a data breach impacting 1,362,296 individuals who have had their sensitive information mistakenly collected by the Meta Pixel ad tracking script. Meta Pixel (formerly Facebook Pixel) is a JavaScript tracking script that Facebook advertisers can add to their site to track advertising performance. The unauthorized patient data access and disclosure began in May 2020, when Novant ran promotional campaigns for COVID-19 vaccination, which involved Facebook advertisements. To track these advertisements, the healthcare company added the Meta Pixel code to their site to measure how well the advertisements worked.
Greek gas operator refuses to negotiate with ransomware group after attack
Greece’s national natural gas operator DESFA confirmed this weekend that it was hit with a cyberattack but said it will not negotiate with the people behind the incident. DESFA is in charge of managing, exploiting, developing, and operating Greece’s natural gas system. The Ragnar Locker ransomware group added the organization to its leak site on Friday, writing that no one had responded to its demands. DESFA, the national natural gas transmission system operator in has been ransomed by ragnar locker. A few screenshots and a file tree are available at RL onion site. Relevant post indicates they are in negotiation phase.
What is the cost of a data breach?
The cost of a data breach is not easy to define, but as more organizations fall victim to attacks and exposures, the potential financial repercussions are becoming clearer. For modern businesses of all shapes and sizes, the monetary impact of suffering a data breach is substantial. IBM’s latest Cost of a Data Breach report discovered that, in 2022, the average cost of a data breach globally reached an all-time high of $4.35 million. This figure represents a 2.6% increase from the previous year and a 12.7% rise from 2020. Factors such as incident type and severity, regulatory standards, company size, sector, and region can significantly affect how much a data breach could costs a business, but all organizations must carefully assess and prepare for the monetary hits that could be just around the corner should they fall victim. Some are potentially far more damaging (and less obvious) than others.
Ex-Twitter exec blows the whistle, alleging reckless and negligent cybersecurity policies
Twitter has major security problems that pose a threat to its own users’ personal information, to company shareholders, to national security, and to democracy, according to an explosive whistleblower disclosure obtained exclusively by CNN and The Washington Post. The disclosure, sent last month to Congress and federal agencies, paints a picture of a chaotic and reckless environment at a mismanaged company that allows too many of its staff access to the platform’s central controls and most sensitive information without adequate oversight. It also alleges that some of the company’s senior-most executives have been trying to cover up Twitter’s serious vulnerabilities, and that one or more current employees may be working for a foreign intelligence service.
