Personal information of 3,226 people who used Luas tram services may have been compromised in a potential cyber-attack. The Dublin-based tram service operator stated that unknown intruders defaced its website and demanded a ransom of one Bitcoin.

In a social media post, Transdev, the company that operates the Luas, declared that its website got compromised and a message from the hackers was displayed on the home page, saying

“You are hacked … some time ago I wrote that you have serious security holes [but] you didn’t reply … the next time someone talks to you, press the reply button … you must pay 1 bitcoin in 5 days … otherwise I will publish all data and send emails to your users.”

The company stated the website has been taken down and they’re working on the issue.

“Due to an ongoing issue, please do not click onto the Luas website. We currently have technicians working on the issue. We will be using this forum only for travel updates should the need arise. For any queries, please contact our customer care number on 1850 300 604,” Luas post read.

There are various incidents of cyber-attacks on transport system earlier. On October 24, 2017, Ukraine’s Odessa airport and metro system in Kiev was targeted by a malware called “BadRabbit” and prompted state-run Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) to ask transport networks to be on alert.

Also, a cybersecurity audit performed on the Washington Metro in July 2018, highlighted that the agency remains vulnerable to attacks that might endanger the security system. The audit report was submitted to Metro’s board of directors in late last month, but the key facts are being kept secret due to the risk from scammers.

The report specifically mentioned the Metro’s incident response measures and whether the security experts in the agency know how to detect and respond to a cyber-attack. In a response to the report, the Metro officials announced that they’re focussing on the security improvements in the entire transport system.

A new study recently showcased the relationship between data breaches and increasing advertising expenditures from the hospitals. Published by American Journal of Managed Care, the study named Understanding the Relationship Between Data Breaches and Hospital Advertising Expenditures revealed that the hospitals who suffered a data breach increased their annual advertising budget by 64 percent.

The researchers Sung J. Choi and M. Eric Johnson stated that they’ve inspected and compared the non-federal acute care inpatient hospitals’ advertising expenditures after a breach to the hospitals without breach history. The analysis, based on the information from the Healthcare Cost Report Information System, market competition, and surveys on media vehicles from 2011 to 2014, stated that the effect of data breaches increased the advertising expenses incurred to restore the hospital’s image.

“We found that breached hospitals were associated with significantly higher advertising expenditures. Repairing the affected hospital’s image and minimizing patient loss to competitors are potential drivers of the increased spending. Regardless of the motivation, breach response adds a financial burden to hospitals and the healthcare system. Advertising and the efforts to fix the damages from a data breach increase healthcare costs and may divert resources and attention away from initiatives to improve care quality. Advertising costs subsequent to a breach are another cost to the healthcare system that could be avoided with better data security,” the report stated.

The Healthcare industry has been a prime target for hackers. Recently, around 15,000 Medicare advantage members of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan were in threat of being affected by a potential data breach. The healthcare and health insurance provider stated that the theft of its employee’s laptop on October 26, 2018, may have compromised the customers’ personal information.

The popular online video game The Town of Salem is the latest victim of a cyber-attack that compromised the personal information of more than 7 million users. The Town of Salem is a role-playing game operated by BlankMediaGames with around 8 million users.

BlankMediaGames confirmed that its servers and databases were hacked, resulting in data theft of users’ names, emails, passwords, IP addresses, and Game & Forum Activity. The gaming company said that it never stores credit card, payment information or personal identifying information of the users. BlankMediaGames notifying the users about the data breach via emails and suggesting them to change their passwords to prevent further loss.

“We don’t store any credit card or payment info. At all. All passwords were hashed and not plain text. This means they do not know what your password is unless they run a program to attempt to guess it against the hashed password. Any reasonably strong password will take a very long time to be guessed. Your accounts should all be safe still if they used the same password, but you can change that as well if you are worried,” BlankMediaGames said in a post.

BlankMediaGames stated the breach was discovered by a hacked-database search engine Dehashed on December 28, 2018. Dehashed stated that it has received information about the breach from an anonymous source. It also said that the breach was caused by an entry-level vulnerability known as LFI / RFI.

“On 12/28/2018 we’ve received an email regarding the popular online RP game “Town Of Salem”s breach. The sender, who wishes to be anonymous at this time, provided Dehashed with evidence of server access and provided the complete database for disclosure. We’ve reached out to BlankMediaGames regarding a statement and to provide assistance with securing their servers,” Dehashed stated in a post.

Even after the improved security measures, the data hacks have become common in the online gaming industry. Recently, Humble Bundle, a digital storefront for video games, revealed that it has suffered a data breach in late November that might have compromised the information like customers’ account details and subscription status.

The company stated that hackers exploited a bug used to gather the subscriber information in the company’s server and illegally gained access to its customers’ email addresses and their Humble Bundle subscription details. However, Humble Bundle clarified that no sensitive information such as customer name, billing address, password, and payment information was exposed in the incident.

The Los Angeles Times and several Tribune Publishing newspapers faced printing and delivery issues after encountering a cyber-attack that reportedly involved a ransomware.

The Associated Press quoted the Chicago Tribune reporting that the publishing and printing systems of several Tribune Publishing newspapers were affected due to a computer virus. The Chicago Tribune’s print edition on Saturday, December 29, 2018, was published without paid classified ads and death notices due to the attack. However, the publisher clarified that no customer and financial information was leaked.

“This issue has affected the timeliness and, in some cases, the completeness of our printed newspapers,” Tribune Publishing spokeswoman Marisa Kollias told Associated Press. “Our websites and mobile applications, however, have not been impacted.”

“There is no evidence that customer credit card information or personally identifiable information has been compromised,” Kollias added.

In Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times, San Diego Union Tribune, the Wall Street Journal and New York Times (West Coast Editions), and some other newspapers were also affected. The Los Angeles Times reported that some people said the attacks appeared to be in the form of “Ryuk” ransomware.

“Because of a major computer breakdown that affected our printing and deliveries, many of you did not receive your copy of Saturday’s Los Angeles Times,” Norman Pearlstine, executive editor of the Los Angeles Times, and Chris Argentieri, its chief operating officer, said in an apology post.

The Australia-based entertainment company Nova Entertainment is the latest victim of a data breach. The radio networks firm stated that the personal information of more than 250,000 radio listeners collected between 2009 and 2011 has been exposed.

According to the official statement, the compromised information included user names, home addresses, emails, phone numbers, gender, and date of birth details. However, Nova clarified that no financial information or copies of ID were disclosed in the incident. Cathy O’Connor, the chief executive at Nova, said that the affected individuals were being notified about the incident and the type of information that disclosed.

“We are taking all necessary measures to ensure the strength and effectiveness of our cyber security, and there is currently no evidence of any suspicious activity or threats on Nova Entertainment’s systems,” Ms. O’Connor said.

“We take privacy, and the security of the information we collect from our listeners very seriously, and on behalf of Nova Entertainment I deeply and sincerely regret that this incident has occurred,” she added.

The radio network firm, that runs radio stations in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth, stated they are notifying the affected people and suggesting to change their passwords and review their credit report for any unusual activity. Nova has informed the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) and is undertaking an investigation to find how the data breach has happened.

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) recently stated that phishing attacks are the key source of data breaches in Australia. The OAIC recently released the quarterly statistics report on the Notifiable Data Breaches (NDB) occurred between July 1, 2018, and September 30, 2018. The latest report notified 245 data breaches that affected users’ personal information during the quarter. Of the 245 reported breaches, the OAIC stated that 57 percent of incidents were caused by malicious attacks, 37 percent resulted from human error, and 6 percent were due to the system fault.

The report detailed the top five industries that suffered the most breaches are health service providers (45%), finance (35%) legal, accounting, management services (34%), private education providers (16%), and personal service providers (13%).

Around 15,000 Medicare advantage members of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan might have affected by a potential data breach. The healthcare and health insurance provider stated that the theft of its employee’s laptop on October 26, 2018, may have compromised the customers’ personal information.

The incident was notified by Blue Cross’s subsidiary company COBX on November 12, 2018. Blue Cross said that while the laptop was encrypted and password-protected, the login details may have been compromised.

“After learning of the theft, we began working with our subsidiary company to promptly change the employee’s access credentials and investigate the issue. To date, we are not aware of any attempted logins to the employee’s laptop since the theft. Although there is no evidence that the laptop contents were accessed, we are notifying just under 15,000 affected Medicare Advantage members in an abundance of caution,” Blue Cross said in a statement.

The access information includes the member’s first name, last name, address, date of birth, enrollee identification number, gender, medication, diagnosis, and provider information. Blue Cross clarified that the Social Security numbers and financial account information were not included in the accessible data.

“Disclosure of protected health information in this way does not meet privacy practices at Blue Cross. Although we believe that the risk of identity theft or financial harm is low in this case, we want to do what we can to alleviate concerns affected members may have,” said Kelly Lange, Blue Cross vice president for enterprise compliance.

“We’re currently working closely with our subsidiary company to review policies and procedures and put additional safeguards in place. At Blue Cross and Blue Care Network, we take the security of our members’ protected health information very seriously and sincerely apologize for this incident,” Lange added.

Blue Cross is notifying the affected members and also providing free identity protection services, which help recover identity theft-related financial losses, restore credit along with fraud alerts, credit monitoring, and identity theft insurance policy, for two years.