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.

Organizations are increasingly being held liable for breaches of employee data. But employers can take steps to mitigate the likelihood and impact of breaches. Any organization using an electronic payroll and benefits system stores and processes sensitive employee data — which covers just about every organization in operation today. There are many risks related to a cyberattack that compromises employee data, including legal liability, business interruption and reputational damage.

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.

Security best practice guidelines always call for changing default passwords as any password left on the factory preset is considered low hanging fruit, essentially just waiting to be abused by attackers to gain unauthorized access. Frameworks such as Cyber Essentials, PCI DSS, and UK Gov ITHC enforce this practice as one of their test requirements during an audit. The scenario below shows why it is part of a best practice to change default passwords as it could lead to a more severe issue.

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.