Whitepaper

The crusade toward passing online privacy protection laws continues to expand, with several more states adopting consumer privacy legislation this year. California has been at the forefront of the movement to keep its residents safer online, having already passed the most effective consumer privacy protection in the nation. 

A new ransomware headline appears every week, a frightening indication of how prevalent such attacks have become. But when Change Healthcare, one of the nation’s largest providers, was hit in February of this year, the impact was severe enough to draw the attention of the US Congress. 

While the exposure of patient records in the attack was concerning enough, broader repercussions were even more severe. The disruption extended beyond the data breach, impacting practitioners, pharmacies, insurance companies, and patient care:

There’s an old saying that you can’t put toothpaste back in the tube. It simply means that some actions, once taken, can't be undone.

Sadly, many individuals believe that is true about their online privacy, and the copious amount of personal information now accessible about them online. Many organizations with hundreds or thousands of employees feel the same way – it’s too late now to turn back time and retroactively remove that content before it can be weaponized.

But that’s not true.

Recently, the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Police Department revealed that police personnel files were stolen in a ransomware attack and posted on the dark web. This is not the first such attack against BART personnel; in 2011, hackers released more than 100 officers’ email addresses, passwords and personal data.

That’s going to result in some bad press for a fine organization, but the fact is that no public entity is immune to such attacks. From the largest global entities to the smallest municipal library, hackers can strike anywhere.