Cybercriminals breach Aflac as part of hacking spree against US insurance industry


Cybercriminals have breached insurance giant Aflac, potentially stealing Social Security numbers, insurance claims and health information, the company said Friday, the latest in a spree of hacks against the insurance industry.

With billions of dollars in annual revenue and tens of millions of customers, Aflac is the biggest victim yet in the ongoing digital assault on US insurance companies that has the industry on edge and the FBI and private cyber experts scrambling to contain the fallout. Erie Insurance and Philadelphia Insurance Companies have also reported hacks this month, which in those cases have caused widespread disruptions to IT systems used to serve customers. All three insurance-company hacks are consistent with the techniques of a young and rampant cybercrime group known as Scattered Spider, people familiar the investigation tell CNN.

Read more…
Source: CNN News


Sign up for our Newsletter
The latest news and insights delivered right to your inbox.


Related:

  • Russia’s Yandex suffers biggest cyberattack yet

    September 8, 2021

    Russian Internet corporation Yandex revealed on Tuesday that the company’s servers experienced the biggest known denial-of-service (DDoS) attack in Russia’s online space last weekend. Cloudflare, an American web infrastructure firm and a partner of Yandex confirmed the record large scale of the cyberattack. The spokesperson for Russia’s tech giant mentioned that a part of the nation’s ...

  • Ragnar Locker Gang Warns Victims Not to Call the FBI

    September 7, 2021

    All that the FBI/ransomware negotiators/investigators do is muck things up, so we’re going to publish your stuff if you call for help, the Ragnar Locker ransomware gang announced on its darknet data-leak site. In an announcement posted this week and seen by Bleeping Computer, the ransomware operators threatened to publish all the data of victimized organizations ...

  • Miscreants fling booby-trapped Office files at victims, no patch yet, says Microsoft

    September 7, 2021

    In an advisory issued on Tuesday, Microsoft said some of its users were targeted by poisoned Office documents that exploit an unpatched flaw to hijack their Windows machines. The vulnerability, CVE-2021-40444, is described as a hole in MSHTML, Internet Explorer’s browser engine. Miscreants are seemingly placing a malicious ActiveX control in an Office document and convincing ...

  • REvil ransomware group resurfaces after brief hiatus

    September 7, 2021

    The operators behind the REvil ransomware group have resurfaced after allegedly closing shop following the widespread attack on Kaseya that caused thousands of victims on July 4. Security researchers said all of the dark web sites for the prolific ransomware group — including the payment site, the group’s public site, the ‘helpdesk’ chat and their negotiation ...

  • TrickBot gang developer arrested when trying to leave Korea

    September 6, 2021

    An alleged Russian developer for the notorious TrickBot malware gang was arrested in South Korea after attempting to leave the country. The TrickBot cybercrime group is responsible for a variety of sophisticated malware targeting Windows and Linux devices to gain access to victim’s networks, steal data, and deploy other malware, such as ransomware. Seoul’s KBS (via The ...

  • Data Breaches: A Chance for Opportunistic Scammers & What You Should Watch for

    September 5, 2021

    Data breaches are now part of doing business, with many companies having been affected. Data is very valuable to criminals because it is often used to commit fraudulent activities as well as to enhance the credibility of scams. Data that is stolen ranges from Social Security Numbers (SSNs) to other identification documents and payment details. Scammers ...