Healthcare

Report: Hospital network hacked, 4.5 million records stolen

News today that Community Health Systems, a national hospital network that  operates 206 hospitals across the United States, was the victim of a cyber attack that resulted in the theft of 4.5 million patients. According to CNN Money, hackers gained access to patient names, Social Security numbers, physical addresses, birthdays and telephone numbers. The breach affects anyone  who received treatment from a physician’s office tied to a Community Health Systems network-owned hospital in the last five years. The FBI is investigating the breach. Community Health Systems’ hospitals operate in 28 states but have their most significant presence in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas. Help Net Security has a panel of experts comment. The consensus is that the healthcare sector is more in the cross hairs for sophisticated attacks that are intended to steal personal information that can be used for identity theft scams. Read more over at CNN Money: Hospital network hacked, 4.5 million […]

Continue Reading

Video: The Internet of Things and Enterprise Risk

The Security Ledger recently hosted our inaugural event: The Security of Things Forum (SECOT). This was a high-energy, day long conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that brought together subject experts, executives and thought leaders from disparate areas like high tech, finance and industrial systems to talk about the tsunami of change that is the Internet of Things. One of the big questions hovering over the event: how will IoT technologies and services change the security paradigm that we’ve all be operating under- but especially in enterprises. In fact, IoT and enterprise was the topic of our very first discussion of the day: a panel chaired by Chris Rezendes of INEX Advisors, a leading consultancy focusing on IoT. SECoT Forum 2014 – Democratized Data, IOT and Enterprise Risk from Exhibitor Media Group on Vimeo It’s a really big and messy problem. As panelist Ken Pfeil of Pioneer Investments pointed out: the hack of […]

Continue Reading

Pew: IoT Will Take Off By 2025, Despite Security Woes

A survey of technology experts by the Pew Research Center and Elon University predicts that the Internet of Things will take off in the next decade despite serious concerns about the security of IoT devices and the data they hold. The IoT will gain wide adoption in the next decade, with the result that many aspects of day-to-day life will be transformed by a combination of inexpensive sensors, cloud based computing and data analytics. The report cites a number of likely innovations that will become commonplace by 2025 – from “smart” food products that can report when they are exhausted or spoiled, to smart roads and infrastructure to “subcutaneous sensors or chips that provide patients’ real-time vital signs to self-trackers and medical providers.” The Pew Center canvassed more than 1600 technology leaders and analysts about the Internet of Things and published the findings of the survey on Wednesday. The survey population included […]

Continue Reading

Blade Runner Redux: Do Embedded Systems Need A Time To Die?

The plot of the 1982 film Blade Runner (loosely based on the 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick) turns on the question of what makes us ‘human.’ Is it memories? Pain? Our ability to feel empathy? Or is it merely the foreknowledge of our own certain demise? In that movie, a group of rebellious, human-like androids – or “replicants” – return to a ruined Earth to seek out their maker. Their objective: find a way to disable an programmed ‘end of life’ in each of them.  In essence: the replicants want to become immortal. It’s a cool idea. And the replicants – pre-loaded with fake memories and histories – pose an interesting philosophical question about what it is that makes us humans. Our artificial intelligence isn’t quite to the ‘replicant’ level yet (the fictional tale takes place in 2019, so we have time). But some […]

Continue Reading

IoT And Big Data To Create Insurance Industry Winners, Losers

This blog writes a lot about risk and the Internet of Things. Specifically: we talk about how smart, sensor rich, connected devices create all kinds of new risks for enterprises and consumers. It goes without saying that feature development (and adoption) are running well ahead of pesky issues like secure design and deployment or data privacy. Smart companies are trying to put some brakes on that trend. (Witness Google prohibiting sensitive health data from its Android Wear platform.) But, by and large, companies are plowing ahead into IoT technologies without a lot of consideration of the risks. But there’s one industry where risk _is_ the business: the insurance industry. And there, the thinking about the potential of Internet of Things is decidedly bullish. In fact, a recent report from the financial services research firm Celent (paywall) suggests that broad adoption of IoT technologies will revolutionize the way insurance companies market and sell to […]

Continue Reading
1 … 11 12 13 14 15 … 17