SENTINEL^TM by IDSTRONG

ChatGPT is OpenAi's chatbot designed to simulate conversations with other people. The tool utilizes a massive language model to produce realistic and believable responses for a conversation.

Cyber-attacks are a major problem that exposes millions of people to fraud on an annual basis. This week there were attacks on some truly massive organizations like the NBA and PayPal, as well as a cyber security company and a few medical companies.

Independent Living Systems LLC is a healthcare facility provider for the elderly, physically challenged, and impaired. The company establishes short-term healthcare facilities for those that need extra care.

Rubrik is a security company that specializes in cloud data management services. The company helps store and secure information for customers, and it's vital that it is able to keep that data safe.

NorthStar Emergency Medical Services is an ambulance service based in Searcy, Arkansas. The company manages three EMS stations in the surrounding area and helps patients get the emergency help they need rapidly.

PayPal is a leading payment transfer service in the United States and other parts of the world. The company got started as a peer-to-peer payment solution and has evolved into a robust payment transfer solution for business and personal use.

The NBA is a national sports league that manages many different leagues under its umbrella of organizations. The league has the NBA 2K League, NBA, Basketball Africa League, the WNBA, and the NBA G League.

Lawrence General Hospital is a private facility located in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The hospital is a non-profit organization and offers patients throughout the surrounding area a variety of services.

Cyber attacks are targeted at significant organizations, and this week is an excellent reminder that medical facilities aren't safe.

Cerebral is an online mental health company that's attempting to bring mental health care to patients around the country virtually.

Zoll is a medical device and technologies company that offers its services to EMS, fire professionals, and rescuers. Even the U.S. Military relies on technologies from the company in order to save lives.

The Minneapolis public school district includes approximately 100 primary and secondary public schools. Between the many different schools, approximately 36,000 students are served by about 1,500 teachers.

AT&T is a massive telecommunications company with its headquarters in Dallas, Texas. The company is known as the largest  telecommunications company in the world according to its revenue, and it is the third-largest mobile phone service provider in the United States.

It's been a rough week for major companies and the government as well, with the week finishing off with Washington D.C. lawmakers having their health information exposed.

DC Health Link is part of the Affordable Care Act online marketplace of health insurance plans. The service provides health care to members of Congress as well as many staff members throughout Capitol Hill.

Acer is a well-known tech company that's based in Taiwan and with facilities and offices around the world. The company's main headquarters are in San Jose, California, in the United States.

Crystal Bay Casino is a gambling establishment located in Lake Tahoe. The facility includes slots, table games, and sports betting and features a small hotel known as the Border House for gamblers to stay in luxury.

Dole PLC is a massive agricultural company headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. Dole has several offices and production facilities in the United States and supplies food products in 75 separate countries.

Dish Network is one of the largest American television providers in the country today, offering television service through a direct-broadcast satellite network.

This week was a bad week for the U.S. government and also featured serious attacks to major Canadian retailer Indigo as well as software company Activision and the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Indigo Books and Music is a Canadian retailer that's well-known for its book offerings throughout the country. The chain has approximately 8,000 employees and was founded in 1996.

The U.S. Marshals office is a federal agency that oversees all the U.S. Marshals throughout the country. The Marshals are specialized federal agents that help with apprehending the country's most violent and dangerous criminals.

The U.S. Department of Defense is a federal department in charge of overseeing all the agencies tasked with maintaining the national security of the U.S. government.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is just one of many districts around the country that are currently being targeted by ransomware gangs.

Activision is a massive game development and software company in the United States. The company is behind huge titles like World of Warcraft and Call of Duty, among others.

We've seen major data breaches over the past week, including a million medical patients being exposed and more than 12 million online food orders being listed online.

Teijin Automotive Technologies is an advanced company that specializes in manufacturing lightweight composite materials used on vehicles, boats, trucks, and more.

Weee! is a popular online grocery delivery service that specializes in Asian and Hispanic food products. This service is an app-based product that allows individuals to have food sent to their homes or workplace.

It's becoming commonplace for large organizations to suffer from ransomware attacks today, and one way that large ransomware gangs are hurting companies is by hitting the secure file transfer services they're relying on.

Xavier University of Louisiana, a private Catholic school with just over 3,400 students, was recently attacked in a cybersecurity incident.

Many people have turned to GoDaddy over the years. They are known for their website solutions, including URLs, hosting, and web builder.

We've seen some pretty extreme breaches in the last week, but it is likely to worsen as the year progresses. As people, we must remember that human error is the most likely thing to happen.

More often than not, the breaches we cover are phishing scams, ransomware attacks, and system hacks. We've seen everything from ransomware-as-a-service to "you won a free vacation" phishing scams and back again.

Even with all the technological advancements humanity has made in recent years, the one thing we will never be able to (nor should we want to) remove is human error.

Social media platforms are often sought-after regarding data breaches. Having unauthorized access to someone's social media can be massive; the unauthorized party can ruin relationships, job opportunities or current jobs, and even school prospects.

As we've seen in full color recently, no one is immune to hacks, nor is any person or company above them. Whether it's a person, a company social media account, entire hospitals full of medical information, or employee details for massive corporations (like this breach), there will almost always be something that a hacker can gain from a breach.

Namecheap is an international domain hosting and IT services company. For those unfamiliar with the term, domain hosting is self-explanatory; a domain hosting service refers to a service or company that hosts your website domain.

Every time we see a medical data breach, we think, "There can't possibly be any more. That's every hospital in the U.S.! " It's not.

Maybe one day, when our grandchildren's grandchildren are studying 2000s cybersecurity, they'll view us as archaic. We'll be questioned for how low quality our security is, and we will be laughed at for how often we were hacked.

Software-as-a-service is a growing business. It is used by PC gamers worldwide (as subscription-based downloadable video games count as software-as-a-service), and you likely have some sort of it because device monitoring software titles also count.

The web of connections for this data breach Is difficult to keep up with, but we'll do our best to keep it as simple as possible.

Scammers often target religious congregations. As a whole, people who follow monotheistic religions (religions with only one god or deity) often find themselves to be more susceptible to scams due to a highly trusting nature usually associated with monotheistic religions.

It's been less than a week since February 2023 started, yet we are, reading about a new medical breach. Over 90% of hospitals have admitted to being victims of data breaches.

Well, the last month has passed incredibly quickly and without much stir, which gives us hope for the next year. However, this month has been incredibly eventful in the world of cybersecurity.

Any large-scale company is at heightened risk of becoming the victim of a data breach. It doesn't always seem like the most obvious target; whether it's a power company, a grocer, or a chain restaurant, there is actually a lot of desirable information available from these companies' databases.

Human resources; a necessary part of nearly any type of work. Perhaps some random hacker felt scorned after a visit to the HR department, which resulted in them losing their job.

You may remember one of our recent posts about T-Mobile's eighth hack in the last five years, as most cybersecurity news outlets were all over the story.

California schools have been something of a hub for cybercrime in recent months. There have been numerous breaches, like the San Diego Unified School District and the Los Angeles Unified School District, the latter of which went down as the largest education breach in history. 

A thought that is often saddening is that only 48 percent of Americans trust the police. Nevertheless, police are necessary to uphold the law; whether that means stopping burglars, serial killers, or school shooters, it doesn't matter.

Anyone paying even little attention to cybersecurity knows that medical practices and services are some of the most targeted institutions in the world.

This week, our lineup is pretty hard-hitting. Some of the biggest names in, well, everything, have been hacked, with a combined victim total of well into the millions.

MailChimp has been hacked repeatedly over the years; there is very little surprise in the breach, though one thing should be considered.

A car manufacturer may not be the first thing that comes to mind when someone says there's been a data breach, though it is a highly sought-after target.

At this point, many T-Mobile users are appalled. When talking about a hack on the company that has access to your most personal pictures, accounts, and conversations, people don't want to be able to say "again" casually.

2023 has definitely gone off with a bang. In the last few weeks, two of the biggest names in online business were hacked, as well as an insulin provider, respiratory therapist, and yet another of California's departments.

Credential stuffing occurs when one hack, usually a surprisingly small one, offers a hacker the ability to steal someone's login credentials for one site, profile, or account and attempts to use it to gain access to other accounts in the same person's name.

Every company that has to do with medical information or practices, from insurance to pharmaceuticals, will never stop being a target for hackers.

Near the end of 2022, we saw a rapid and alarming rise in costly mistakes, mostly emails sent to unauthorized parties. Not only can this ruin employees' lives and careers, but thousands (if not millions) of people have been affected by this trend.

Medical institutions have been facing a heightened risk of data breaches. We've seen constant reporting of hospitals, insurance companies, and therapy offices being hacked, and there is little we can do to stop it.

Credential stuffing attacks are more common than one might think. This type of attack occurs when a hacker or other form of criminal finds personal credentials, usually log-in and account information, and uses that information to attempt to access your other accounts.

As the new year kicks off, hackers seem to have made their resolutions to "make this year even bigger than years past. " We've already seen schools and hospitals thrown off their axes.

Every single one of us has wanted to open that email that says we won a trip to the Bahamas, but we know it's a scam. Some wear better disguises, like an important email from your place of work, but we still get the vacation emails because they work.

Ransomware groups are rising to prominence in more recent years than ever before. Two hundred years ago, this equivalent would have been kidnapping a member of high society and demanding a ransom.

Experian is one of the largest credit bureaus in the world. It serves over a billion people, about 235 million of whom are Americans.

LockBit ransomware gang was, as of September 2022, the most prolific ransomware group in the world. It has hundreds of confirmed attacks around the globe, and if they truthfully claimed this attack, it can only spell trouble for the California government and residents. 

Vice Society is a Russian ransomware group that targets public and private education systems. The group was responsible for the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) hack, which affected more than 300,000 teachers and students from LA. They were also behind various hacks and breaches that left multiple colleges and universities crippled through 2021 and 2022.

First things first: Happy New Year from our team at IDStrong!   As far as hacks go, this year hasn't started at the best pace, but we like to remain on the bright side.

We've seen a lot of hacks over the years, but a fast-food chain is not one that you immediately think of. A hacker is more likely to attack a credit bureau, hospital, or school system in search of the information they want, but if you think about it, Five Guys isn't that bad of a target.

Over the years, Twitter has become a thriving online metropolis of sorts. Over 450 million people use the worldwide platform, making it the 16th largest social media platform.

People familiar with data security are aware of the problems associated with hospital security. It doesn't matter how extensive the hospital's systems are, how hard it is to hack, or how many precautions are in place.

There are a lot of places you would never think of as being a target for hackers. However, when these places, companies, or platforms are hacked, we're never really surprised.

Anyone that knows anything about cybersecurity – even the most basic knowledge – knows that most cybercrimes motives are money (a ransomware attack), fame (teapotuberhacker, the teenage boy responsible for the Grand Theft Auto VI and Uber breaches in mid-2022), and political statements (Anonymous).

We've talked the last few weeks about the holiday crime rate and how it rises above most of the rest of the year. We've talked about how hospitals and schools are prime targets for hackers because of the plethora of information they contain.

Steel River System is a debt collector based out of Pennsylvania. We can't help but laugh at the situation; a real-life debt collector – no scams included with your phone call – was a target for a hacker.

We're about two-thirds of the way through our holiday hack spree, and it doesn't seem to be slowing down. Another financial company has been added to the ever-growing list, making it difficult for anyone with an online or cyber presence to trust anything or anyone online.

We often talk about how hospitals, schools, banks, and credit bureaus are some of the most prominent targets for hackers. However, we also talk about how sometimes, the most obvious place to be hacked takes eons to get hacked.

During this day and age, all hospitals are fair game. What we wouldn't think about are things like an ambulance provider. However, it does make sense.

People familiar with cybersecurity are aware of the rise in hospital hacks and breaches over the last few years. Those that try to make themselves aware of many data incidents will be astonished by the sheer number of hospitals and schools on those lists.

Now that we're reaching the end of 2022, the holidays have hit, and so has the winter hack spike. This so-called spike has yet to actually be researched, but it is a common theory that there is a massive swell in both real life and cybercrime around the winter holidays.

Anyone that's been keeping up with cybersecurity posts inside of 2022 knows that hospitals are one of the number one targets for hackers worldwide.

We're sure we all remember the Los Angeles Unified School District hack. It was all over news stations for weeks as the teachers, students, and parents dealt with the largest education data breach in history.

Data breaches are a fickle thing; they can affect millions of individuals, or they can affect barely anyone. They can be ransomware attacks, phishing scams, credential stuffing, firewall cracking, etc.

Emory Healthcare, a part of Emory University, is Georgia's most significant hospital system. Unfortunately for its patients and employees, it has found itself on the ever-growing list of hospitals victimized by data breaches.

Suncoast Skin Solutions has suddenly found itself on a rapidly growing list: companies hit by ransomware attacks. It's a surprisingly easy list to make it onto.

Long gone are the days of a tall, dark, and mysterious gentleman and his colleagues in ski masks breaking into an office building and digging through files.

Insurance companies are often highly sought after; at least, they are in the criminal world. They hold an extensive amount of information, and when information has fallen into the wrong hands, it could lead to a wide array of problems, most notably identity theft.

If you're one of our avid readers, you may remember how over 2022's black Friday season, many financial companies were targeted by hackers.

As we've stated in past posts, financing companies are incredibly high on the target list for hackers. Financial companies have access to tons of PII (personally identifying information), making them perfect for hackers.

Power companies are an underrated target for hackers worldwide. To sign up for power services, you need to offer the company your name, social security number (SSN), address, and other forms of ID, among other things.

Unethical, or black hat, hackers have very little qualms against who they'll hack. Often, they'll go with either the easiest target or the most rewarding one, as most criminals do.

The holidays are closing in: we repeat, the holidays are closing in! This is not a drill! While the holidays mean too much cooking, wrapping, and estranged-family exposure, that's not the only thing you should worry about.

Not all companies have the budget to hire an entire HR or financial department, let alone both. Most people have gotten ads for HR services; those on free Spotify have probably heard the Bambee ad about a hundred times.

Here's a fun fact; financial information is a high-selling item on the dark web. Most people think it's something like addresses or social security numbers, but surprisingly, it's not.

Over the last few years, health systems have seen a considerable rise in cybersecurity incidents. According to CyberCrime Magazine, the healthcare industry will likely spend up to $125 billion on cybersecurity between 2020 and 2025.

Throughout 2022, we've seen a massive uptick in insurance providers, schools, and hospitals becoming victims of data breaches.

Stanley Street Treatment and Resources, or SSTAR, is a healthcare and rehab provider with locations in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Global password manager LastPass suffered from a data breach in August 2022, that was said to not involve anything more than source code.

Breaches during this week were all over the place, and they are showing no signs of slowing down. Many breaches this year tend to be "take the data now, and figure out what to do with it later", in terms of approach.

Investment broker, dealer, and advisor Ingalls & Snyder, LLC, comes from New York City, NY. They employ just under 100 people and generate approximately $17M annually while managing about $8B in financial assets.

Columbia Grain International, LLC, is based out of Portland, OR. They employ nearly 200 people but also work with over 8,000 farmers around the world.