T-Mobile has recently agreed to a $15.75m settlement with the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for multiple cybersecurity incidents that led to millions of customers’ data being breached.  The settlement relates to a series of data breaches that occurred in 2021, 2022, and 2023, which have all been subject to FCC investigations.  T-Mobile also agreed to invest the same amount to improve its cybersecurity posture.

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Searchlight Cyber further highlighted that the availability of any data related to an organization on the dark web increases its vulnerability to cyberattacks. The Marsh McLennan Cyber Risk Intelligence Center analyzed a dark web dataset against a sample of 9,410 organizations with an overall breach rate of 3.7 percent from 2020 to 2023. They wanted to see if there was a correlation between data breaches and dark web findings in the year prior to the incident. This article continues to discuss dark web exposure being highly correlated with cyberattack risk.

Recently, legislation that mandated safety requirements for major artificial intelligence model developers in California was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.  Newsom said that the bill lacks consideration of the environments where the models are deployed, the data used by such models, and their purpose.  Newsome said the bill applies stringent standards to even the most basic functions so long as a large system deploys it.  Newsome said that he did not believe this was the best approach to protecting the public from real threats posed by the technology.

Patelco Credit Union has recently informed authorities that information about more than 1 million individuals was stolen in a ransomware attack this summer.  The cyberattack was identified on June 29 and resulted in Patelco taking some of its day-to-day banking systems offline.  The company said it led to an outage affecting the union’s online banking services, mobile application, and call center.  The credit union noted that the attackers had access to its systems starting May 23 and that they stole a database containing personal information.

The Community Clinic of Maui in Hawaii recently informed authorities that a cyberattack suffered earlier this year has resulted in a data breach impacting over 120,000 individuals.  The company says it detected a cybersecurity incident on May 7 and later determined that the attackers may have stolen personal data between May 4 and May 7.

Public accounting firm Wright, Moore, DeHart, Dupuis & Hutchinson (WMDDH) recently started notifying over 127,000 individuals that their personal information was stolen in a July 2023 data breach.  The incident was identified on July 11, 2023, when unusual network activity was observed on WMDDH’s network.  However, it took roughly ten months for WMDDH to determine who the compromised personal information belonged to and an additional two months to identify contact information for the impacted individuals.

According to the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual), over a third (34%) of English schools and colleges were hit by a cyber incident in the previous academic year 2023/24.  The exam watchdog found that 20% of schools and colleges were unable to recover immediately following an incident, with 4% taking more than half a term to return to normal operations.  Additionally, 9% of headteachers admitted they had experienced a “critically damaging” cyberattack in the last academic year.