Weekly Cybersecurity Recap December 22

This week was devastating for data breaches. Across the US, cybercriminals stole the information of 58.4 million consumers, patients, and students. Our reports began in West Virginia, where the MOVEit breach cannibalized another 495k records from 17 hospitals. Soon after, Mr. Cooper’s breach appeared with more information about their October event—14.7 million homeowners had their data stolen. The National Student Clearinghouse also suffered losses due to the MOVEit event; they announced the exposure of 270k records from their systems. In California, MOVEit returned—7 million patients from Delta Dental and its subsidiaries were exposed. Finally, one of the largest single organization breaches in the US occurred; Xfinity was breached by a vulnerable vendor, exposing 36 million records to internet cyber wars. 

West Virginia University Health System

The WVUHS includes 17 hospitals and clinics across the region. These institutions partnered with Welltok to bring faster and better communication options for patients and physicians. Welltok is one of thousands of organizations worldwide facing the consequences of Progress Software’s MOVEit breach. WVUHS’ breach includes patient information, including names, dates of birth, phone numbers, health insurance details, medical record numbers, and other sensitive data. Those impacted by this breach must take action to protect themselves and their information immediately.

Nationstar Mortgage & Mr. Cooper

In October, Mr. Cooper downed their website in response to an unauthorized actor within their system. The response isolated the event but did not stop the assailants from stealing millions of homeowner records. The stolen data includes homeowner and borrower names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, Social Security Numbers (SSNs), and bank account numbers. Victims of this breach cannot wait for their notices to start taking defensive action—they must act immediately. 

National Student Clearinghouse

The NSC is another organization brought down by the MOVEit breach. Over 270k students and associates of the group are at risk due to the global event. The stolen information includes personal data, like names, contact details, dates of birth, SSNs, student ID numbers, and school-based records like enrollments, degree history, and course-relative details. Although some of this data cannot cause further destruction, if sold to the correct person, victims may be at risk for traditional criminal activities like blackmail.

Delta Dental of California and Affiliates

In the most significant MOVEit data breach this week, DDC announced almost 7 million records taken from their network. The DDC is a benefits provider for millions in the surrounding California region; this may indicate a more significant final impact number when investigations are complete. The data stolen in this event includes full names, information about dental procedures, and claims payment data. Victims of this breach must consider account monitoring services—their financial and identity information is at risk. 

Comcast Communications’ Xfinity

In the biggest data breach in weeks, Xfinity has announced a multi-million record event stemming from a vulnerable vendor. Xfinity has implemented a mandatory password reset protocol, but this may not be enough to protect victims of the incident. Some of the stolen data includes customer names, contact details, partial SSNs, and security questions/answers. Consequently, those users who have used the same credentials across multiple accounts are at risk for further victimization. Their only options are to update their security responses, enable multi-factor authentications, and create unique credentials for all associated accounts.