Apria Healthcare is a healthcare equipment provider that works with more than 2 million patients annually. The company offers services in more than 280 different locations in the United States and specializes in home healthcare equipment. This organization has a significant number of employees and maintains health and personal data for employees and patients throughout the course of providing services to customers.

The US Marine Corps is a military service department that serves the US Department of Defense. The organization is responsible for provisioning and overseeing the marine troops and for most ground-based operations. This massive defensive organization is responsible for protecting the data of more than 177,200 active duty members as well as a large number of civilians that aid the forces as well. All of this data could be used in harmful ways if exposed.

Tesla, one of the leading electronic vehicle manufacturers in the world today, recently suffered from a massive data breach that resulted in extensive data being released to the public. The company employs more than 127,000 individuals and has an annual revenue of $81.46 billion. A huge amount of employee data and proprietary technological information is held on the Tesla file servers, and allowing it to be hacked and released to the public is a huge security misstep.

Bristol Community College is a mid-sized public university located in Fall River, Massachusetts. The school employs more than 1,000 individuals and has over 11,000 students annually. The school houses an extensive amount of data for its employees and its students, and some of that data was put at risk by a recent breach. The data breach left many people involved with the school at risk of being exposed and suffering from identity theft attacks.

Health, financial, and education institutions took major hits this week in coordinated data breach attacks. PharMerica Credit Control Corporation, Retirement Clearinghouse, Whitworth University, and Bristol Community College were all victims of major breaches that resulted in significant data losses and some serious problems for the people involved. Massive companies are being hit by these breaches, and you should consider credit monitoring services for your own personal safety.

Whitworth University is a small private Christian university located in Spokane, Washington. The school manages information for more than 3,000 students each year, and all that data was put at risk when the school was hit by a ransomware attack. The unexpected attack caused the students to lose personal data and put them at serious risk of an identity theft attack. This university earns approximately $150 million in revenue annually and maintains a staff of over 720 people.

Retirement Clearinghouse is a financial services company that got its start in 2001 by the name of RolloverSystems first. This company helps businesses enable their employees to exchange their individual retirement savings accounts for company 401k accounts. This service helps keep employees more financially secure and results in better long-term retirement savings.

Credit Control Corporation, or CCC, is a Virginia-based company that offers debt collection solutions to different companies. The organization provides budget planning services, follows up with third-party insurance offers, handles cash flow improvement programs, and more. This business is made up of 25 individuals and generates approximately $7 million in revenue annually.

PharMerica is a huge service provider that works with many of the pharmacies and medical facilities in the United States today. The company offers its services to more than 2,500 facilities and over 3,100 pharmacies, and providing the data services to all those companies requires storing massive amounts of HIPAA-protected information. Unfortunately, this pharmaceutical services giant suffered a recent data breach compromising data for millions of different patients.

NextGen Healthcare is an Atlanta-based healthcare services company that helps hospitals and health practices manage health record data electronically. The company was founded in 1973 and manages data for millions of different patients throughout the United States. With so many patients relying on the same service, this company is a huge security vulnerability since it suffered from a major data breach.

Major data breaches seem to be occurring more and more frequently, and we have some huge names on the list of impacted companies this week, including the US Government, Toyota, and Intel. We were also concerned with services in our hospitals and our schools being breached, giving up patient, student, and teacher data in the process through the breach of companies like SchoolDude and NextGen Healthcare.

Inquisitive minds are curious and seek out new knowledge, asking questions that will receive detailed answers. Anyone who considers themselves inquisitive should avoid the “Dark Web” or approach with extreme caution. The Internet is more complex by the hour, with nearly two billion websites and growing, the average user accesses only about ten percent of this massive resource.

Over centuries, harassment has been rooted in the global human condition. Modern America continues to grapple with intimidation, sexual abuse, bullying, and much more, all of which have severe implications for the victims. Ignoring the root causes of one person maliciously targeting another as a lower part of society is morally wrong. Persistent and unwanted targeting has been inflamed in recent decades by the worsening of fundamental human rights.

SchoolDude is a cloud-based work management tool for school districts and other organizations throughout the United States. This software service is used by school employees and students to submit repair requests and manage those same requests. The software is used to handle serious repairs in schools all over, and it also manages some confidential data about employees. This information was just released in a serious data breach that included more than 3 million user accounts.

Intel is an American-based corporation that offers technology products and services to much of the world. The massive corporation employs tens of thousands of individuals and generates approximately 63 billion USD in annual revenue. The tech giant handles a significant amount of data for customers and employees, and some of that data was recently exposed in an MSI data breach.

Toyota is a worldwide car manufacturer based in Toyota City, Japan. This automaker produces millions of vehicles each year, and many of those vehicles had their locations publicly available for as long as ten years. If you drive a Toyota vehicle, your location may have been available to anyone interested in seeing it, all because of a cloud configuration mistake. This mistake compromised the privacy of over 2 million Toyota car owners and is a serious hit to Toyota's name and reputation.

The US Government employs more than 1.8 million individuals, and a large group of those employees was recently exposed by a serious data breach. This breach impacted government employees that use the TRANServe transit benefits program from the government to cover some of their commuting costs to and from work. Over 237,000 current and past members of the program were exposed during this breach.

From the beginning of the computer revolution, there has been a smorgasbord of devices and peripherals, with some DOA and others innovative and groundbreaking. Thumb drives or USB Flash Drives were created in the early 80s, with the first commercially available drive holding 128MG. Cutting-edge USB drives of today hold 20Terabytes and up.

Protection methods for sensitive data have evolved to encompass new forms of thinking to combat constant threat vectors and attacks. Protecting against malware, brute force attacks, and malicious code, data engineers at Cisco, Microsoft, and others craft unique methods to counter the never-ending aggression. Data Masking and data encryption are two similar technologies with different characteristics, purpose, and technique.

Major companies have suffered serious data breaches this week, and even the city of Dallas, Texas, was hacked and damaged by data attacks that could expose a significant number of people, making it clear that everyone is at risk when it comes to identity theft and data attacks specifically. Huge mental health organizations like Brightline and Mcpherson Hospital exposed confidential patient data, and even the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City was the target of a breach attack this week.

Carvin Software is a massive company based in Gilbert, Arizona. The company creates specialized software solutions for business owners and individuals throughout the country. Carvin specializes in construction software but offers staffing solutions and other types of software services as well. A large variety of companies work with this organization, including Apple Staffing, Ace Personnel, Labor Force, and more.

McPherson Hospital is a large-scale health facility in McPherson, Kansas. The hospital employs more than 225 people and offers walk-in care, emergency care, primary care services, and a range of specialty health services. This large facility generates approximately $7 million in revenue annually. It was hit by a data breach recently, risking the information of patients significantly.

The Metropolitan Opera is a well-established opera house that opened its doors in 1883 and has been putting on dozens of operas each year. The Met is an impressive establishment that employs more than 900 individuals, and it stores a substantial amount of customer data during its regular operations. This well-known opera house recently got hit by a data breach that puts its customers in real danger.

The City of Dallas, Texas, is the ninth largest in the United States currently, with a population of more than 2.6 million people. This massive city was just hit by a substantial ransomware attack by the Royal ransomware gang. The attack interfered with policy response time, 911 services, the police website, the city's court system, and more. With such significant interference occurring in the city's system of government, it's a serious issue for everyone in Dallas.

Brighline is a virtual counseling service that provides help to children, teenagers, and whole families. This pediatric counseling service offers a range of mental health care services to patients throughout the world. Brightline stores a significant amount of personal data to maintain these patient records and offer reliable care, but the company recently suffered from a dangerous data breach, exposing hundreds of thousands of patient records to the internet.

A lot of us are fascinated with technology. Any form or mention of the subject piques an interest or at least a glance of curiosity. Unfortunately, we must endure the dark side of technology as well. From the beginning of the computer age, there have always been hackers who could match their criminal expertise to current technologies. Some hackers are concerned with small scams and easy entry points.

CommScope is a massive tech company with more than 30,000 employees. The organization works with companies around the world and helps to establish network infrastructure systems for hospitals, schools, federal agencies, and more. CommScope is based out of Hickory, North Carolina, and has been in business since 1976. The massive company has an annual revenue of 9.23 billion USD and manages substantial networks for businesses throughout the United States.

Data breaches are harmful to the companies they hit as well as their customers, and this week telecommunications and networking companies were hit especially hard. T-Mobile and AT&T both suffered from serious breaches that put their customers at risk of being exposed. Networking giant CommScope was the victim of a vicious ransomware attack, putting network infrastructure technology at risk. Grocery chain Albertson's and dating sites were also exposed this week.

T-Mobile is a telecommunications brand used throughout the United States, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Germany. The company provides text messaging services, voice communication, mobile data, and more for millions of customers. T-Mobile has been in business since 1999 and is well-known as a leading communications brand in the United States, and now we're learning the company isn't secure.

Communications company AT&T offers email services to many of its customers. Those emails have recently been compromised by way of an interesting exploit that is costing customers millions of dollars in stolen cryptocurrency. AT&T customers are having their email accounts attacked, and those exploited email accounts are being used to steal additional data and to access cryptocurrency exchange accounts, which is a very serious issue for the impacted users.

A few very personal and private specialized dating sites were recently hit by data attacks that have led to users being exposed and potentially released onto the internet. Sites CityJerks and TruckerSuckers both experienced data breaches from the same individual who is attempting to sell the stolen data. The information taken from these accounts is highly private and personal, and anyone involved in this breach is likely to be unhappy about having their data exposed.

Albertsons is a major grocery chain in the United States. The company is based in Boise, Idaho, and oversees a huge range of different grocery stores throughout the country. Stores like Star Market, Tom Thumb, Acme, Safeway, Vons, Balduccis, Food Lover's Market, Shaw's, Albertsons, and more.

The Cyber Kill Chain is a significant piece of work from Lockheed Martin in 2011. The Chain outlines seven essential points at which an IT team can intercept a cyberattack. Numerous experts took the process a bit further to eight steps: “reconnaissance, weaponization, delivery, exploitation, installation, command and control, actions on the objective, and monetization.”