Chinese hackers breach the U.S. Treasury Department. At least 35 Chrome extensions are compromised. Federal authorities arrest a U.S. Army soldier over accusations of sensitive data stolen from AT&T and Verizon. A misconfigured Amazon cloud server exposes sensitive data from over 800,000 VW EV owners. Rhode Island confirms a data breach linked to ransomware group Brain Cipher. Ascension healthcare confirms the exposure of the personal and medical data of 5.6 million customers. A recent patch to Windows BitLocker encryption proves inadequate. A suspected Chinese hacking campaign is exploiting a vulnerability in Palo Alto firewalls for espionage. The DOJ bans the sale of Americans’ sensitive data to adversarial nations. HHS proposes a HIPAA update to address cybersecurity. Our guest is Mick Baccio, Global Security Advisor at Splunk, with insights on the cybersecurity resilience gap. CISA Director Easterly looks back at 2024.

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CyberWire Guest

Our guest is Mick Baccio, Global Security Advisor at Splunk’s security research team SURGe, sharing some insights on the cybersecurity resilience gap and top cyber challenges/priorities for the public sector. You can read more about this in SURGe’s blog and whitepaper.

Selected Reading

US Treasury Department breached through remote support platform (Bleeping Computer)

New details reveal how hackers hijacked 35 Google Chrome extensions (Bleeping Computer)

U.S. Army Soldier Arrested in AT&T, Verizon Extortions (Krebs on Security)

AT&T and Verizon Say Chinese Hackers Ejected From Networks (GovInfo Security)

Volkswagen leak exposes private information of 800,000 EV owners, including location data (TechSpot)

Hackers Leak Rhode Island Citizens' Data on Dark Web (Infosecurity Magazine)

Ascension cyberattack exposed medical data of 5.6M customers (Healthcare IT News)

Patched BitLocker Flaw Still Susceptible to Hack (GovInfo Security)

Palo Alto Firewalls Backdoored by Suspected Chinese Hackers (BankInfo Security)

US prohibits data sales to adversarial nations (SC Media)

Massive healthcare breaches prompt US cybersecurity rules overhaul (Bleeping Computer)

CISA's 2024 Review Highlights Major Efforts in Cybersecurity Industry Collaboration (Infosecurity Magazine)

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Ep 261 - Why Pro-Lifers Can't Support Rape Exceptions