ESO Solutions’ Data Breach Impacts 2.7 Million Individuals
- Written by Shipra Sanganeria Cybersecurity & Tech Writer
- Fact-Checked by Justyn Newman Former Lead Cybersecurity Editor
Austin-based software services provider for healthcare companies and fire departments, in a public notice revealed that data belonging to nearly 3 million patients has been compromised in a security-related incident.
According to the notice , the incident was first detected by ESO on September 28, 2023, which resulted in data exfiltration before the hackers encrypted a number of its system. Upon discovery, ESO Solutions immediately isolated the impacted system, deployed additional security measures, and partnered with third-party forensic experts to gauge the impact and scale of the incident.
During the ongoing investigation, it discovered that a system containing sensitive information of patients had been breached. ‘’On October 23, 2023, ESO determined that personal and patient health information was located on one of its impacted systems,’’ the notice revealed. It is said to affect individuals registered with its customers, i.e., hospitals and clinics in the US.
The stolen information included, ‘’names, dates of birth, injury type and date, treatment type and date, procedure information, and, in some cases, Social Security Numbers.’’
The security-incident was reported to the concerned Federal authorities, including the FBI. All the impacted customers were first notified on December 12, and some of the affected healthcare facilities sent our individual breach notices to patients.
In addition to securing and restoring its systems and operations ‘’via viable backups,’’ ESO will be offering a 12-month identity monitoring service coverage to all impacted individuals.
Although the full list of hospitals and facilities impacted was not disclosed by the organizations; the notice filed with the Office of the Maine Attorney General revealed the following names:
- Mississippi Baptist Medical Center
- Memorial Hospital at Gulfport Health System
- Merit Health River Oaks
- Forrest General Hospital
- Alaska Regional Hospital
- ESO EMS Agency
- Providence Kodiak Island Medical Center
- Ascension Providence Hospital in Waco
- Manatee Memorial Hospital
- Desert View Hospital
- CaroMont Health
In recent days, several prominent healthcare facilities, particularly in the US, have been victims of ransomware attacks, like Norton Healthcare, Ardent Health Services, among others.
Citrix Vulnerability Exploitation Results in Comcast Xfinity Data Breach
- Written by Shipra Sanganeria Cybersecurity & Tech Writer
- Fact-Checked by Justyn Newman Former Lead Cybersecurity Editor
In a recent disclosure, Comcast Cable’s Xfinity brand revealed that the October 2023 Citrix-related security incident compromised sensitive information of nearly 36 million customers.
The telecommunication company revealed that despite patching the security flaw announced by Citrix on October 10, hackers managed to exploit the Citirix vulnerability to access Xfnity’s network.
Comcast, in a notification to the Office of the Maine Attorney General, revealed that additional mitigation measures was issued by Citrix on October 23, which was promptly adopted by Xfinity.
‘’However, we subsequently discovered that prior to mitigation, between October 16 and October 19, 2023, there was unauthorized access to some of our internal systems that we concluded was a result of this vulnerability,’’ the notification stated.
In addition to launching an investigation, the company notified the concerned federal authorities about the nature and scope of the incident. Its investigation on November 16 revealed that information from its network had been compromised.
‘’On December 6, 2023, we concluded that the information included usernames and hashed passwords. For some customers, other information was also included such as names, contact information, last four digits of social security numbers, dates of birth and/or secret questions and answers. However, our data analysis is continuing, and we will provide additional notices as appropriate.’’
In order to protect its customers, the firm has advised them to reset their passwords, including enrolling for two-factor authentication (2FA). It further asked them ‘’not to re-use passwords across multiple accounts, if you do use the same information elsewhere, we recommend that you change the information on those other accounts, as well.’’
The critical-security vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2023-4966 and known as ‘’ CitrixBleed ,’’ had been exploited in the wild by hackers since late August 2023. Found in NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway devices, this flaw allows unauthorized actors to bypass security and hijack sessions.
