I've Been Mugged Blog

Millions of Americans’ Medical Images and Data Are Available on the Internet. Anyone Can Take a Peek.

[Editor's note: today's guest blog post, by reporters at ProPublica, explores data security issues within the healthcare industry and its outsourcing vendors. It is reprinted with permission.]

By Jack Gillum, Jeff Kao and Jeff Larson - ProPublica

Medical images and health data belonging to millions of Americans, including X-rays, MRIs and CT scans, are sitting unprotected on the internet and available to anyone with basic computer expertise.

The records cover more than 5 million patients in the U.S. and millions more around the world. In some cases, a snoop could use free software programs — or just a typical web browser — to view the images and private data, an investigation by ProPublica and the German broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk found.

We identified 187 servers — computers that are used to store and retrieve medical data — in the U.S. that were unprotected by passwords or basic security precautions. The computer systems, from Florida to California, are used in doctors’ offices, medical-imaging centers and mobile X-ray services.

The insecure servers we uncovered add to a growing list of medical records systems that have been compromised in recent years. Unlike some of the more infamous recent security breaches, in which hackers circumvented a company’s cyber defenses, these records were often stored on servers that lacked the security precautions that long ago became standard for businesses and government agencies.

"It’s not even hacking. It’s walking into an open door," said Jackie Singh, a cybersecurity researcher and chief executive of the consulting firm Spyglass Security. Some medical providers started locking down their systems after we told them of what we had found.

Our review found that the extent of the exposure varies, depending on the health provider and what software they use. For instance, the server of U.S. company MobilexUSA displayed the names of more than a million patients — all by typing in a simple data query. Their dates of birth, doctors and procedures were also included.

Alerted by ProPublica, MobilexUSA tightened its security earlier this month. The company takes mobile X-rays and provides imaging services to nursing homes, rehabilitation hospitals, hospice agencies and prisons. "We promptly mitigated the potential vulnerabilities identified by ProPublica and immediately began an ongoing, thorough investigation," MobilexUSA’s parent company said in a statement.

Another imaging system, tied to a physician in Los Angeles, allowed anyone on the internet to see his patients’ echocardiograms. (The doctor did not respond to inquiries from ProPublica.) All told, medical data from more than 16 million scans worldwide was available online, including names, birthdates and, in some cases, Social Security numbers.

Experts say it’s hard to pinpoint who’s to blame for the failure to protect the privacy of medical images. Under U.S. law, health care providers and their business associates are legally accountable for securing the privacy of patient data. Several experts said such exposure of patient data could violate the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, the 1996 law that requires health care providers to keep Americans’ health data confidential and secure.

Although ProPublica found no evidence that patient data was copied from these systems and published elsewhere, the consequences of unauthorized access to such information could be devastating. "Medical records are one of the most important areas for privacy because they’re so sensitive. Medical knowledge can be used against you in malicious ways: to shame people, to blackmail people," said Cooper Quintin, a security researcher and senior staff technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital-rights group.

"This is so utterly irresponsible," he said.

The issue should not be a surprise to medical providers. For years, one expert has tried to warn about the casual handling of personal health data. Oleg Pianykh, the director of medical analytics at Massachusetts General Hospital’s radiology department, said medical imaging software has traditionally been written with the assumption that patients’ data would be secured by the customer’s computer security systems.

But as those networks at hospitals and medical centers became more complex and connected to the internet, the responsibility for security shifted to network administrators who assumed safeguards were in place. "Suddenly, medical security has become a do-it-yourself project," Pianykh wrote in a 2016 research paper he published in a medical journal.

ProPublica’s investigation built upon findings from Greenbone Networks, a security firm based in Germany that identified problems in at least 52 countries on every inhabited continent. Greenbone’s Dirk Schrader first shared his research with Bayerischer Rundfunk after discovering some patients’ health records were at risk. The German journalists then approached ProPublica to explore the extent of the exposure in the U.S.

Schrader found five servers in Germany and 187 in the U.S. that made patients’ records available without a password. ProPublica and Bayerischer Rundfunk also scanned Internet Protocol addresses and identified, when possible, which medical provider they belonged to.

ProPublica independently determined how many patients could be affected in America, and found some servers ran outdated operating systems with known security vulnerabilities. Schrader said that data from more than 13.7 million medical tests in the U.S. were available online, including more than 400,000 in which X-rays and other images could be downloaded.

The privacy problem traces back to the medical profession’s shift from analog to digital technology. Long gone are the days when film X-rays were displayed on fluorescent light boards. Today, imaging studies can be instantly uploaded to servers and viewed over the internet by doctors in their offices.

In the early days of this technology, as with much of the internet, little thought was given to security. The passage of HIPAA required patient information to be protected from unauthorized access. Three years later, the medical imaging industry published its first security standards.

Our reporting indicated that large hospital chains and academic medical centers did put security protections in place. Most of the cases of unprotected data we found involved independent radiologists, medical imaging centers or archiving services.

One German patient, Katharina Gaspari, got an MRI three years ago and said she normally trusts her doctors. But after Bayerischer Rundfunk showed Gaspari her images available online, she said: "Now, I am not sure if I still can." The German system that stored her records was locked down last week.

We found that some systems used to archive medical images also lacked security precautions. Denver-based Offsite Image left open the names and other details of more than 340,000 human and veterinary records, including those of a large cat named "Marshmellow," ProPublica found. An Offsite Image executive told ProPublica the company charges clients $50 for access to the site and then $1 per study. "Your data is safe and secure with us," Offsite Image’s website says.

The company referred ProPublica to its tech consultant, who at first defended Offsite Image’s security practices and insisted that a password was needed to access patient records. The consultant, Matthew Nelms, then called a ProPublica reporter a day later and acknowledged Offsite Image’s servers had been accessible but were now fixed.

"We were just never even aware that there was a possibility that could even happen," Nelms said.

In 1985, an industry group that included radiologists and makers of imaging equipment created a standard for medical imaging software. The standard, which is now called DICOM, spelled out how medical imaging devices talk to each other and share information.

We shared our findings with officials from the Medical Imaging & Technology Alliance, the group that oversees the standard. They acknowledged that there were hundreds of servers with an open connection on the internet, but suggested the blame lay with the people who were running them.

"Even though it is a comparatively small number," the organization said in a statement, "it may be possible that some of those systems may contain patient records. Those likely represent bad configuration choices on the part of those operating those systems."

Meeting minutes from 2017 show that a working group on security learned of Pianykh’s findings and suggested meeting with him to discuss them further. That “action item” was listed for several months, but Pianykh said he never was contacted. The medical imaging alliance told ProPublica last week that the group did not meet with Pianykh because the concerns that they had were sufficiently addressed in his article. They said the committee concluded its security standards were not flawed.

Pianykh said that misses the point. It’s not a lack of standards; it’s that medical device makers don’t follow them. “Medical-data security has never been soundly built into the clinical data or devices, and is still largely theoretical and does not exist in practice,” Pianykh wrote in 2016.

ProPublica’s latest findings follow several other major breaches. In 2015, U.S. health insurer Anthem Inc. revealed that private data belonging to more than 78 million people was exposed in a hack. In the last two years, U.S. officials have reported that more than 40 million people have had their medical data compromised, according to an analysis of records from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Joy Pritts, a former HHS privacy official, said the government isn’t tough enough in policing patient privacy breaches. She cited an April announcement from HHS that lowered the maximum annual fine, from $1.5 million to $250,000, for what’s known as “corrected willful neglect” — the result of conscious failures or reckless indifference that a company tries to fix. She said that large firms would not only consider those fines as just the cost of doing business, but that they could also negotiate with the government to get them reduced. A ProPublica examination in 2015 found few consequences for repeat HIPAA offenders.

A spokeswoman for HHS’ Office for Civil Rights, which enforces HIPAA violations, said it wouldn’t comment on open or potential investigations.

"What we typically see in the health care industry is that there is Band-Aid upon Band-Aid applied" to legacy computer systems, said Singh, the cybersecurity expert. She said it’s a “shared responsibility” among manufacturers, standards makers and hospitals to ensure computer servers are secured.

"It’s 2019," she said. "There’s no reason for this."

How Do I Know if My Medical Imaging Data is Secure?

If you are a patient:

If you have had a medical imaging scan (e.g., X-ray, CT scan, MRI, ultrasound, etc.) ask the health care provider that did the scan — or your doctor — if access to your images requires a login and password. Ask your doctor if their office or the medical imaging provider to which they refer patients conducts a regular security assessment as required by HIPAA.

If you are a medical imaging provider or doctor’s office:

Researchers have found that picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) servers implementing the DICOM standard may be at risk if they are connected directly to the internet without a VPN or firewall, or if access to them does not require a secure password. You or your IT staff should make sure that your PACS server cannot be accessed via the internet without a VPN connection and password. If you know the IP address of your PACS server but are not sure whether it is (or has been) accessible via the internet, please reach out to us at [email protected].

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

Equifax To Pay $575 Million To Settle Charges By U.S. Regulators About Massive 2017 Data Breach

Yesterday, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced a proposed settlement agreement with Equifax, a national credit reporting agency, which has agreed to pay $575 million to resolve charges about its massive data breach in 2017. That breach exposed the sensitive personal and financial information of about half of all citizens in the United States. The announcement stated:

"In its complaint, the FTC alleges that Equifax failed to secure the massive amount of personal information stored on its network, leading to a breach that exposed millions of names and dates of birth, Social Security numbers, physical addresses, and other personal information that could lead to identity theft and fraud..."

The global, proposed settlement agreement included the FTC, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and 50 U.S. states and territories. The FTC announcement described Equifax's data security failures (emphasis added):

"The FTC alleges that Equifax failed to patch its network after being alerted in March 2017 to a critical security vulnerability affecting its ACIS database, which handles inquiries from consumers about their personal credit data. Even though Equifax’s security team ordered that each of the company’s vulnerable systems be patched within 48 hours after receiving the alert, Equifax did not follow up to ensure the order was carried out... Equifax did not discover that its ACIS database was unpatched until July 2017... A company investigation revealed that multiple hackers were able to exploit the ACIS vulnerability to gain entry to Equifax’s network, where they accessed an unsecured file that included administrative credentials stored in plain text. These credentials allowed the hackers to gain access to vast amounts of consumers’ personally identifiable information... The hackers targeted Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and other sensitive information, mostly from consumers who had purchased products from Equifax such as credit scores, credit monitoring, or identity theft prevention services. For example, hackers stole at least 147 million names and dates of birth, 145.5 million Social Security numbers, and 209,000 payment card numbers and expiration dates. Hackers were able to access a staggering amount of data because Equifax failed to implement basic security measures... the FTC also alleges that Equifax stored network credentials and passwords, as well as Social Security numbers and other sensitive consumer information, in plain text."

A truly staggering amount. The most sensitive personal and financial information, indeed. Terms of the proposed settlement:

"... Equifax will pay $300 million to a fund that will provide affected consumers with credit monitoring services. The fund will also compensate consumers who bought credit or identity monitoring services from Equifax and paid other out-of-pocket expenses as a result of the 2017 data breach. Equifax will add up to $125 million to the fund if the initial payment is not enough to compensate consumers for their losses. In addition, beginning in January 2020, Equifax will provide all U.S. consumers with six free credit reports each year for seven years—in addition to the one free annual credit report that Equifax and the two other nationwide credit reporting agencies currently provide."

The settlement also requires Equifax implement a "comprehensive information security plan," and to pay $175 million to 48 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, as well as $100 million to the CFPB in civil penalties. The comprehensive information security plan will: a) designate an employee to oversee the program; b) include annual assessment of security risks and safeguards; c) obtain "annual certifications from the Equifax board of directors or relevant subcommittee attesting that the company has complied with the order;" d) monitor the effectiveness of security safeguards implemented; e) ensure service providers that access personal information stored by Equifax also implement adequate safeguards; and f) obtain third-party assessments every two years.

The CFPB also announced the proposed settlement on its website. CFPB Director Kathleen L. Kraninger said:

"Today’s announcement is not the end of our efforts to make sure consumers’ sensitive personal information is safe and secure. The incident at Equifax underscores the evolving cyber security threats confronting both private and government computer systems and actions they must take to shield the personal information of consumers. Too much is at stake for the financial security of the American people to make these protections anything less than a top priority."

Kraninger also encouraged consumers affected by the breach to submit their claims to receive free credit monitoring or cash reimbursements. Equifax Chief Executive Officer Mark W. Begor said:

"This comprehensive settlement is a positive step for U.S. consumers and Equifax as we move forward from the 2017 cybersecurity incident and focus on our transformation investments in technology and security as a leading data, analytics, and technology company. The consumer fund of up to $425 million that we are announcing today reinforces our commitment to putting consumers first and safeguarding their data... We have been committed to resolving this issue for consumers and have the financial capacity to manage the settlement while continuing our $1.25 billion EFX2020 technology and security investment program..."

Also, Equifax has set up a website about the settlement: www.equifaxbreachsettlement.com. However, the site says it won't be fully functional until after it receives the approved court order. So, it seems best for affected consumers to deal directly with the FTC.

And, several questions remain. The Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) discussed the proposed settlement:

"What victims will qualify for reimbursement? How will victims provide accurate evidence of their efforts and misfortunes? Is this fund only for victims who purchased identity theft services? What is the option for victims who did not have the resources then or now to purchase paid services or avail themselves of free services like those ITRC provides? If all victims filed claims and funds were distributed equally to all 148 million people, each would receive fewer than $3.00 in funds or cost of assistance. This does not accurately reflect the true value of the data that was compromised..."

Yep. More payments by Equifax may be required.

And, the ITRC article includes an important reminder. While the Equifax offer includes a long period of free credit monitoring services -- up to 10 versus the usual 2 years -- the risk to affected consumers never goes away:

"... identity theft has no expiration date. The threat of identity theft does not decrease as more time passes from the date of the breach."

This is why it is critical for companies to deploy the strongest data security measures possible. After data breaches, consumers bear the long-term risks.

Last, the FTC encourages Equifax employees who believe the company fails to comply with the settlement to contact the FTC at [email protected]. Affected consumers should contact the FTC directly at the website below:

Evite Admitted Data Breach. Doesn't Disclose The Number Of Users Affected

Evite, the online social and invitations site, disclosed last month a data breach affecting some of its users:

"We became aware of a data security incident involving potential unauthorized access to our systems in April 2019. We engaged one of the leading data security firms and launched a thorough investigation. The investigation potentially traced the incident to malicious activity starting on February 22, 2019. On May 14, 2019, we concluded that an unauthorized party had acquired an inactive data storage file associated with our user accounts... Upon discovering the incident, we took steps to understand the nature and scope of the issue, and brought in external forensic consultants that specialize in cyber-attacks. We coordinated with law enforcement regarding the incident, and are working with leading security experts to address any vulnerabilities..."

Evite was founded in 1998, so there could be plenty of users affected. The breach announcement did not disclose the number of users affected.

The Evite breach announcement also said, "No user information more recent than 2013 was contained in the file" which was accessed/stolen by unauthorized persons. Evite said it has notified affected users, and has reset the passwords of affected users. The Evite system will prompt affected users to create new passwords when signing into the service.

The announcement listed the data elements accessed/stolen: names, usernames, email addresses, and passwords. If users also entered their birth dates, phone numbers, and mailing addresses then those data elements were also access/stolen. Social Security numbers were not affected since Evite doesn't collect this data. Evite said payment information (e.g., credit cards, debit cards, bank accounts, etc.) was not affected because:

"We do not store financial or payment information. If you opted to store your payment card in your account, your payment information is maintained by and stored on the internal systems of our third-party vendor."

Thank goodness for small wonders. The Evite disclosure did not explain why passwords were not encrypted, nor if that or other data elements would be encrypted in the future. As with any data breach, context matters. ZD Net reported:

"... a hacker named Gnosticplayers put up for sale the customer data of six companies, including Evite. The hacker claimed to be selling ten million Evite user records that included full names, email addresses, IP addresses, and cleartext passwords. ZDNet reached out to notify Evite of the hack and that its data was being sold on the dark web on April 15; however, the company never returned our request for comment... Back in April, the data of 10 million Evite users was put up for sale on a dark web marketplace for ฿0.2419 (~$1,900). The same hacker has breached, stolen, and put up for sale the details of over one billion users from many other companies, including other major online services, such as Canva, 500px, UnderArmor, ShareThis, GfyCat, Ge.tt, and others."

The incident is another reminder of the high value of consumers' personal data, and that hackers take action quickly to use or sell stolen data.

The Worst Mobile Apps For Privacy

ExpressVPN compiled its list for 2019 of the four worst mobile apps for privacy. If you value your online privacy and want to protect yourself, the security firm advises consumers to, "Delete them now." The list of apps includes both predictable items and some surprises:

"1. Angry Birds: If you were an international spying organization, which app would you target to harvest smartphone user information? If you picked Angry Birds, congratulations! You’re thinking just like the NSA and GCHQ did... what it lacks in gameplay, it certainly makes up for in leaky data... A mobile ad platform placed a code snippet in Angry Birds that allowed the company to target advertisements to users based on previously collected information. Unfortunately, the ad’s library of data was visible, meaning it was leaking user information such as phone number, call logs, location, political affiliation, sexual orientation, and marital status..."

"2. The YouVersion Bible App: The YouVersion Bible App is on more than 300 million devices around the world. It claims to be the No. 1 Bible app and comes with over 1,400 Bibles in over 1,000 languages. It also harvests data... Notable permissions the app demands are full internet access, the ability to connect and disconnect to Wi-Fi, modify stored content on the phone, track the device’s location, and read all a user’s contacts..."

Read the full list of sketchy apps at the ExpressVPN site.

California Seeks To Close Loopholes In Its Data Breach Notification Law

California pursues legislation to close loopholes in its existing data breach notification law. Current state law in California does not require businesses to notify consumers when their passport and biometric data is exposed or stolen during a data breach. The proposed law would close that loophole.

The legislation was prompted by the gigantic data breach at Marriott's Starwood Hotels unit. The sensitive information of more than 327 million guests was accessed by unauthorized persons. The data accessed -- and probably stolen -- included guests' names, addresses, at least 25 million passport numbers, and more. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced the proposed legislation:

"Though [Marriott] did notify consumers of the breach, current law does not require companies to report breaches if only consumers’ passport numbers have been improperly accessed... In 2003, California became the first state to pass a data breach notification law requiring companies to disclose breaches of personal information to California consumers whose personal information was, or was reasonably believed to have been, acquired by an unauthorized person... This bill would update that law to include passport numbers as personal information protected under the statute. Passport numbers are unique, government-issued, static identifiers of a person, which makes them valuable to criminals seeking to create or build fake profiles and commit sophisticated identity theft and fraud. AB 1130 would also update the statute to include protection for a person’s unique biometric information, such as a fingerprint, or image of a retina or iris."

Assembly member Marc Levine (D-San Rafael) introduced the proposed legislation to the California House, and said in a statement:

“There is a real danger when our personal information is not protected by those we trust... Businesses must do more to protect personal data, and I am proud to stand with Attorney General Becerra in demanding greater disclosure by a company when a data breach has occurred. AB 1130 will increase our efforts to protect consumers from fraud and affirms our commitment to demand the strongest consumer protections in the nation."

Good. There are too many examples of companies failing to announce data breaches affecting companies. TechCrunch reported that AB 1130:

"... comes less than a year after state lawmakers passed the California Privacy Act into law, greatly expanding privacy rights for consumers — similar to provisions provided to Europeans under the newly instituted General Data Protection Regulation. The state privacy law, passed in June and set to go into effect in 2020, was met with hostility by tech companies headquartered in the state... Several other states, like Alabama, Florida and Oregon, already require data breach notifications in the event of passport number breaches, and also biometric data in the case of Iowa and Nebraska, among others..."

Kudos to California for moving to better protect consumers. Hopefully, other states will also update their breach notification laws.

Marriott Lowered The Number Of Guests Affected By Its Data Breach. Class Action Lawsuits Filed

Important updates about the gigantic Marriott-Starwood data breach. The incident received more attention after security experts said that China's intelligence agencies may have been behind the cyberattack, which also targeted healthcare insurance companies.

Earlier this month, Marriott announced a lower number of guests affected:

"Working closely with its internal and external forensics and analytics investigation team, Marriott determined that the total number of guest records involved in this incident is less than the initial disclosure... Marriott now believes that the number of potentially involved guests is lower than the 500 million the company had originally estimated [in November, 2018]. Marriott has identified approximately 383 million records as the upper limit for the total number of guest records that were involved...

The announcement also said that fewer than 383 million different persons were affected because its database contained multiple records for the same guests. The announcement also stated that about:

"... 5.25 million unencrypted passport numbers were included in the information accessed by an unauthorized third party. The information accessed also includes approximately 20.3 million encrypted passport numbers... Marriott now believes that approximately 8.6 million encrypted payment cards were involved in the incident. Of that number, approximately 354,000 payment cards were unexpired as of September 2018..."

This is mixed news. Fewer breach victims is good news. The bad news: multiple database records for the same guests, and unencrypted passport numbers. Better, stronger data security always includes encrypting sensitive information. The announcement did not explain why some data was encrypted and some wasn't.

The hotel chain said that it will terminate its Starwood reservations database at the end of the year, and continue its post-breach investigation:

"While the payment card field in the data involved was encrypted, Marriott is undertaking additional analysis to see if payment card data was inadvertently entered into other fields and was therefore not encrypted. Marriott believes that there may be a small number (fewer than 2,000) of 15-digit and 16-digit numbers in other fields in the data involved that might be unencrypted payment card numbers. The company is continuing to analyze these numbers to better understand if they are payment card numbers and, if they are payment card numbers, the process it will put in place to assist guests."

Also, the hotel chain admitted during its January 4th announcement that it still wasn't fully ready to help affected guests:

"Marriott is putting in place a mechanism to enable its designated call center representatives to refer guests to the appropriate resources to enable a look up of individual passport numbers to see if they were included in this set of unencrypted passport numbers. Marriott will update its designated website for this incident (https://info.starwoodhotels.com) when it has this capability in place."

In related news, about 150 former guests have sued Marriott. Vox reported that a class-action lawsuit:

"... was filed Maryland federal district court on January 9, claims that Marriott did not adequately protect guest information before the breach and, once the breach had been discovered, “failed to provide timely, accurate, and adequate notice” to guests whose information may have been obtained by hackers... According to the suit, Marriott’s purchase of the Starwood properties is part of the problem. “This breach had been going on since 2014. In conducting due diligence to acquire Starwood, Marriott should have gone through and done an accounting of the cybersecurity of Starwood,” Amy Keller, an attorney at DiCello Levitt & Casey who is representing the Marriott guests, told Vox... According to a December report by the Wall Street Journal, Marriott could have caught the breach years earlier."

At least one other class-action lawsuit has been filed by breach victims.

More Than One Billion Accounts Affected By Data Breaches During 2018

Now that 2019 is here, we can assess 2018. It was a terrible year for identity theft, privacy, and data breaches. Several corporations failed miserably to protect the data they archive about consumers. This included failures within websites and mobile apps. There were so many massive data breaches that it isn't a question of whether or not you were affected.

You were. NordVPN reviewed the failures during 2018:

"If your data wasn’t leaked in 2018, you’re lucky. The information of over a billion people was compromised in 2018 as many of the companies we trust failed to protect our data."

That's billion with a "b." NordVPN provides virtual private network (VPN) services. If you want to use the internet with privacy, a VPN is the way to go. That is especially important for residents of the United States, since the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) repealed in 2017 both broadband privacy and net neutrality protections for consumers. A December 2017 study of 1,077 voters found that most want net neutrality protections. President Trump signed the privacy-rollback legislation in April 2017. A prior blog post listed many historical abuses of consumers by some ISPs.

PC Magazine reviewed NordVPN earlier this month and concluded:

"... NordVPN has proved itself to be our top service for securing your online activities. The company now has more than 5,100 servers across the globe, making it the largest service we've yet tested. It also takes a strong stance on privacy for its customers and includes tools rarely seen in the competition."

The NordVPN articled listed the major corporate data security failures during 2018. Frequent readers of this blog are familiar with the breaches. Chances are you use one or more of the services. Below is a partial list:

• Marriott: 500 million
• Twitter: 330 million
• My Fitness Pal: 150 million accounts
• Facebook: 147 million accounts
• Quora: 100 million accounts
• Firebase: 100 million accounts
• Google+ : 500,000 accounts
• British Airways: 380,000 accounts

While Google is closing its Google+ service, that is little help for breach victims whose personal data is out in the wild. The massive Equifax breach affecting 145.5 million persons isn't on the list because it happened in 2017. It's important to remember Equifax because persons cannot opt out of Equifax, or any of the other credit reporting agencies. Ain't corporate welfare nice?

What can consumers do to protect themselves and their sensitive personal and payment information? NordVPN advised:

1. "Use strong and unique passwords.
2. Think twice before posting anything on social media. This information can be used against you.
3. If you shop online, use a credit card. You will have less liability for fraudulent charges if your financial information leaks.
4. Provide companies only with necessary information. The less information they have, the less they can leak.
5. Look out for fraud. If notified that your data was leaked, change your passwords and take the steps advised by the company that compromised your data."

Well, there you go. That's a good starter list for consumers to protect themselves. Do it because your personal data is out in the wild. The only question is which bad actor is abusing it.

Welcome To The New, Terrifying World Of Fake Porn. Plenty Of Consequences And Implications

First, I'd  like to thank all of my readers -- existing and new ones. Some have shared insightful comments on blog posts. Second, the last post of 2018 features a topic we will probably hear plenty about during 2019: artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.

To learn more about AI and related issues, watch or read the AI episodes within the CXO Talk site. And, MediaPost discussed the deployment of of AI by retail stores:

"... retailers seem much more bullish on artificial intelligence, with 7% already using some form of AI in digital assistants or chatbots, and most (64%) planning to have implemented AI within the next three years, 21% of those within the next 12 months. The top reason for using AI in retail is personalization (42%), followed by pricing and promotions (31%), landing page optimization (15%) and fraud detection (21%)."

Like any other online (or offline) technology, AI can be used for good and for bad. The good guys and bad actors both have access to AI technologies. MotherBoard reported:

"There’s a video of Gal Gadot having sex with her stepbrother on the internet. But it’s not really Gadot’s body, and it’s barely her own face. It’s an approximation... The video was created with a machine learning algorithm, using easily accessible materials and open-source code that anyone with a working knowledge of deep learning algorithms could put together."

You may remember Gadot from the 2017 film, "Wonder Woman." Other actors have been victims, too. Where do bad actors get tools to make AI-assisted fake porn? The fake porn with Gadot was:

"... allegedly the work of one person—a Redditor who goes by the name 'deepfakes'—not a big special effects studio... deepfakes uses open-source machine learning tools like TensorFlow, which Google makes freely available to researchers, graduate students, and anyone with an interest in machine learning. Like the Adobe tool that can make people say anything, and the Face2Face algorithm that can swap a recorded video with real-time face tracking, this new type of fake porn shows that we're on the verge of living in a world where it's trivially easy to fabricate believable videos of people doing and saying things they never did... the software is based on multiple open-source libraries, like Keras with TensorFlow backend. To compile the celebrities’ faces, deepfakes said he used Google image search, stock photos, and YouTube videos..."

There is also an AI App for fake porn. Yikes! As bad as this seems, it is worse. According to The Washington Post:

"... an anonymous online community of creators has in recent months removed many of the hurdles for interested beginners, crafting how-to guides, offering tips and troubleshooting advice — and fulfilling fake-porn requests on their own. To simplify the task, deepfake creators often compile vast bundles of facial images, called “facesets,” and sex-scene videos of women they call “donor bodies.” Some creators use software to automatically extract a woman’s face from her videos and social-media posts. Others have experimented with voice-cloning software to generate potentially convincing audio..."

This is beyond bad. It is terrifying.

The implications: many. Video, including speeches can easily be faked. Fake porn can be used as a weapon to harass women and/or to discredit accusers of sexual abuse and/or battery. Today's fake porn could be tomorrow's fake videos and fake news to discredit others: politicians, business executives, government officials (e.g., judges, military officers, etc.), individuals in minority groups, or activists. This places a premium upon mainstream news outlets to provide reliable, trustworthy news. This places a premium upon fact-checking sites.

The consequences: several. Social media users must first understand that they have made themselves vulnerable to the threats. Parents have made both themselves and their children vulnerable, too. How? The photographs and videos you've already uploaded to Facebook, Instagram, dating apps, and other social sites are source content for bad actors. So, parents must not only teach teenagers how to read terms-of-condition and privacy polices, but also how to fact-check content to avoid being tricked by fake videos.

This means all online users must become skilled consumers of information and news = read several news sources, verify, and fact check items. Otherwise, you are likely to be fooled... duped into joining or contributing to a bogus cause... tricked into voting for someone you wouldn't. This means social media users must carefully consider your photographs before you post online; and whether the social app or service truly provides effective privacy.

It also means that all social media users should NOT retweet or re-post every sensational item you see in their inboxes without fact-checking it first. Otherwise, you are part of the problem. Be part of the solution.

Video advertisements can easily be faked. So, it is in the interest of consumers, companies, and government agencies to both find solutions and to upgrade online privacy and digital laws -- which seem to constantly lag behind new technologies. There probably needs to be stronger consequences for offenders.

The Brookings Institute advised:

"In order to maximize positive outcomes [from AI], organizations should hire ethicists who work with corporate decision-makers and software developers, have a code of AI ethics that lays out how various issues will be handled, organize an AI review board that regularly addresses corporate ethical questions, have AI audit trails that show how various coding decisions have been made, implement AI training programs so staff operationalizes ethical considerations in their daily work, and provide a means for remediation when AI solutions inflict harm or damages on people or organizations."

These recommendations seems to apply to social media sites, which are high-value targets for bad actors wanting to post fake porn or other fake videos. It raises the question: which social sites have AI ethics policies and/or have hired ethicists and related staff to enforce such policies?

To do nothing seem unwise. Sticking our collective heads in the sane regarding new threats seems unwise, too. What issues concern you about AI-assisted fake porn or fake videos? What solutions do you want?

New Phone-Based Phishing Scams Can Trick Even Experts. How You Can Avoid Getting Duped

Beware, phone scams are more sophisticated. The pitches are so slick that even some technology experts who know better were tricked into disclosing sensitive personal and payment information. Some phone scams include human callers (called "phishing"), while others include a mix of humans and computer automation (called "vishing").

The Krebs On Security blog listed several examples. Here's one:

"Matt Haughey is the creator of the community Weblog MetaFilter... Haughey banks at a small Portland credit union, and last week he got a call on his mobile phone from an 800-number that matched the number his credit union uses. Actually, he got three calls from the same number in rapid succession. He ignored the first two, letting them both go to voicemail. But he picked up on the third call, thinking it must be something urgent and important. After all, his credit union had rarely ever called him.

Haughey said he was greeted by a female voice who explained that the credit union had blocked two phony-looking charges in Ohio made to his debit/ATM card. She proceeded to then read him the last four digits of the card that was currently in his wallet. It checked out. Haughey told the lady that he would need a replacement card immediately... Without missing a beat, the caller said he could keep his card and that the credit union would simply block any future charges that weren’t made in either Oregon or California. This struck Haughey as a bit off. Why would the bank say they were freezing his card but then say they could keep it open for his upcoming trip?"

Maybe that struck you as odd, too. Against his better judgment, Haughey continued the phone call and didn't hang up. The caller knew his home address and asked him to verify his mother's maiden name, the 3-digit security code on the back of his card, and his PIN number. Those requests were more clues, too. The bank should know this information.

Like most people, Haughey thought that it was his bank trying to be helpful. Finally, he hung up and called his bank directly. That's when he learned it was a scam. His bank hadn't called.

This example provides several lessons for consumers:

1. Scam artists are persistent. They will keep calling hoping you'll give in and answer the phone calls.
2. Scam artists are well armed. Thanks to the recent multitude of massive corporate data breaches (like this one, this one, this one, this one, and/or this one), the bad guys have probably acquired plenty of stolen personal and payment information about consumers. Criminals also buy, sell, and trade stolen data on the dark web. Using the same technologies (e.g., artificial intelligence, open-source online tools) which the good guys use, the bad guys will "spoof" or fake valid phone numbers to pretend to be your bank or financial institution.
3. A bit of skepticism is healthy. We've all been taught to be polite and to answer the phone when it rings. Scam artists try to exploit this habit. Experts advise consumers to hang up on robocalls. Even if the Caller ID feature on your phone displays a familiar number, hang up and call your bank or financial institution directly. Their phone number is conveniently listed on the back of your credit/debit card. Ask your bank if they called. They probably didn't.
4. Learn how to spot robocalls acting like humans. If you're curious and have the time, ask a simple question like, "How's the weather where you live?" If the caller ignores your question or provides a canned response, like "I don't have that information" or "I'm sorry. Can you repeat that," then it's probably a robocall. Hang up.
5. Know scam artists' pitch. It's all about money. They will pretend to be your bank, financial institution, phone company, and/or computer company. (Yes, online scammers have a profile.) Similar to phishing emails, phone scams often include a sense of urgency. They want you to act now... in the moment. Wise consumers do product research and comparison shop before making purchase decisions. The "haste makes waste" advice your parents told you as a youth still applies.

You now know more, so you won't get duped by phone scams.

Why The Recent Facebook Data Breach Is Probably Much Worse Than You First Thought

The recent data breach at Facebook has indications that it may be much worse than first thought. It's not the fact that a known 50 million users were affected, and 40 million more may also be affected. There's more. The New York Times reported on Tuesday:

"... the impact could be significantly bigger since those stolen credentials could have been used to gain access to so many other sites. Companies that allow customers to log in with Facebook Connect are scrambling to figure out whether their own user accounts have been compromised."

Facebook Connect, an online tool launched in 2008, allows users to sign into other apps and websites using their Facebook credentials (e.g., username, password). many small, medium, and large businesses joined the Facebook Connect program, which was using:

"... a simple proposition: Connect to our platform, and we’ll make it faster and easier for people to use your apps... The tool was adopted by thousands of other firms, from mom-and-pop publishing companies to high-profile tech outfits like Airbnb and Uber."

Initially, Facebook Connect made online life easier and more convenient. Users could sign up for new apps and sites without having to create and remember new sign-in credentials:

But in July 2017, that measure of security fell short. By exploiting three software bugs, attackers forged “access tokens,” digital keys used to gain entry to a user’s account. From there, the hackers were able to do anything users could do on their own Facebook accounts, including logging in to third-party apps."

On Tuesday, Facebook released a "Login Update," which said in part:

"We have now analyzed our logs for all third-party apps installed or logged in during the attack we discovered last week. That investigation has so far found no evidence that the attackers accessed any apps using Facebook Login.

Any developer using our official Facebook SDKs — and all those that have regularly checked the validity of their users’ access tokens – were automatically protected when we reset people’s access tokens. However, out of an abundance of caution, as some developers may not use our SDKs — or regularly check whether Facebook access tokens are valid — we’re building a tool to enable developers to manually identify the users of their apps who may have been affected, so that they can log them out."

So, there are more news and updates to come about this. According to the New York Times, some companies' experiences so far:

"Tinder, the dating app, has found no evidence that accounts have been breached, based on the "limited information Facebook has provided," Justine Sacco, a spokeswoman for Tinder and its parent company, the Match Group, said in a statement... The security team at Uber, the ride-hailing giant, is logging some users out of their accounts to be cautious, said Melanie Ensign, a spokeswoman for Uber. It is asking them to log back in — a preventive measure that would invalidate older, stolen access tokens."

Tips For Parents To Teach Their Children Online Safety

Today's children often use mobile devices at very young ages... four, five, or six years of age. And they don't know anything about online dangers: computer viruses, stalking, cyber-bullying, identity theft, phishing scams, ransomware, and more. Nor do they know how to read terms-of-use and privacy policies. It is parents' responsibility to teach them.

NordVPN, a maker of privacy software, offers several tips to help parents teach their children about online safety:

"1. Set an example: If you want your kid to be careful and responsible online, you should start with yourself."

Children watch their parents. If you practice good online safety habits, they will learn from watching you. And:

"2. Start talking to your kid early and do it often: If your child already knows how to play a video on Youtube or is able to download a gaming app without your help, they also should learn how to do it safely. Therefore, it’s important to start explaining the basics of privacy and cybersecurity at an early age."

So, long before having the "sex talk" with your children, parents should have the online safety talk. Developing good online safety habits at a young age will help children throughout their lives; especially as adults:

"3. Explain why safe behavior matters: Give relatable examples of what personal information is – your address, social security number, phone number, account credentials, and stress why you can never share this information with strangers."

You wouldn't give this information to a stranger on a city street. The same applies online. That also means discussing social media:

"4. Social media and messaging: a) don’t accept friend requests from people you don’t know; b) never send your pictures to strangers; c) make sure only your friends can see what you post on Facebook; d) turn on timeline review to check posts you are tagged in before they appear on your Facebook timeline; e) if someone asks you for some personal information, always tell your parents; f) don’t share too much on your profile (e.g., home address, phone number, current location); and g) don’t use your social media logins to authorize apps."

These are the basics. Read the entire list of online safety tips for parents by Nord VPN.

T-Mobile Confirmed Data Breach Affecting Millions Of Customers

T-Mobile confirmed a data breach which impacted its customers. Last week, the mobile service provider said in a statement:

"On August 20, our cyber-security team discovered and shut down an unauthorized access to certain information, including yours, and we promptly reported it to authorities. None of your financial data (including credit card information) or social security numbers were involved, and no passwords were compromised. However, you should know that some of your personal information may have been exposed, which may have included one or more of the following: name, billing zip code, phone number, email address, account number and account type (prepaid or postpaid)."

Affected customers are being notified. The statement did not disclose the number of affected customers, exactly how criminals breached its systems, nor the specific actions T-Mobile is taking to prevent this type of breach from happening again. The lack of detail is discouraging and does not promote trust.

CBS News reported:

"... the breach affected about 3 percent of T-Mobile's 77 million customers, or 2 million people... In May, researchers detected a bug in the company's website that allowed anyone to access the personal data of customers with just a phone number. The company is waiting for regulatory approval of a proposed $26.5 billion takeover of Sprint, the fourth-largest carrier in the United States."

So, criminals have stolen enough information to do damage: send spam via e-mail or text, and conduct pretexting (e.g., impersonate others to take over online accounts by resetting passwords, and/or gain access to payment data).

If you received a breach notice from T-Mobile, how satisfied are you with the company's response?

Money Transfer Scams Target Both Businesses And Consumers

Money transfer scams, also called wire transfer scams, target both businesses and consumers. The affected firms include both small and large businesses.

Businesses

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) calls theses scams "Business E-mail Compromise" (BEC), since the fraudsters often target executives within a company with phishing e-mails, designed to trick victims into revealing sensitive bank account and sign-in credentials (e.g., usernames, passwords):

"At its heart, BEC relies on the oldest trick in the con artist’s handbook: deception. But the level of sophistication in this multifaceted global fraud is unprecedented... Carried out by transnational criminal organizations that employ lawyers, linguists, hackers, and social engineers, BEC can take a variety of forms. But in just about every case, the scammers target employees with access to company finances and trick them into making wire transfers to bank accounts thought to belong to trusted partners—except the money ends up in accounts controlled by the criminals."

From January, 2015 to February 2017, there was a 1,300 percent increase in financial losses due to these scams, totaling $3 billion. To trick victims, criminals use a variety of online methods including spear-phishing, social engineering, identity theft, e-mail spoofing, and the use of malware. (If these terms are unfamiliar, then you probably don't know enough to protect yourself.) Malware, or computer viruses, are often embedded in documents attached to e-mail messages -- another reason not to open e-mail attachments from strangers.

Forbes Magazine reported in April:

"Fraudsters target the CEO's and CFO's at various companies and hack their computers. They collect enough information to learn the types of billing the company pays, who the payee's are and the average balances paid. They then spoof a customer or, in other words, take their identity, and bill the company with wire transfer instructions to a scam bank account."

Some criminals are particularly crafty, by pretending to be a valid customer, client or vendor; and use a slightly altered sender's e-mail address hoping the victim won't to notice. This technique is successful more often that you might think. Example: a valid sender's e-mail address might be [email protected], while the scammer uses [email protected]. Did you spot the alteration? If you didn't, then you've just wired money directly to the criminal's offshore account instead of to a valid customer, client, or vendor.

Scammers can obtain executives' e-mail addresses and information from unprotected pages on social networking sites and/or data breaches. So, the data breaches at Under Armour, Equifax, Fresenius, Uber, the Chicago Board of Elections, Yahoo, Nationwide, Verizon, and others could have easily provided criminals with plenty of stolen personal data to do plenty of damage; impersonating coworkers, business associates, and/or coworkers. Much of the stolen information is resold by criminals to other criminals. Trading stolen data is what many cyber criminals do.

There are several things executives can do to protect themselves and their business' money. Learn to recognize money transfer scams and phishing e-mails. Often, bogus e-mails or text messages contain spelling errors (e.g., in the message body) and/or contain a request to wire immediately an unusually large amount of money. Most importantly, the FBI recommends:

"The best way to avoid being exploited is to verify the authenticity of requests to send money by walking into the CEO’s office or speaking to him or her directly on the phone. Don’t rely on e-mail alone."

That means don't rely upon text messages either.

Consumers

Wiring money is like sending cash. To avoid losing money, it is important for consumers to learn to recognize money transfer scams, too. There are several versions, according to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC):

"1. You just won a prize but you have to pay fees to get the prize
2. You need to pay for something you just bought online before they send it
3. A friend is in trouble and needs your help
4. You got a check for too much money and you need to send back the extra"

Regular readers of this blog are already familiar with #4 -- also called "check scams." Instead of paper checks, scammers have upgraded to prepaid cards and/or wire transfers. The FTC also advises consumers to pause before doing anything, and then:

• "If the person claims (via e-mail) to need money for an emergency, call them first. Call another family member. Verify first if something truly happened.
• If the check received is too much money, call your bank before you deposit the check.  Ask your bank what they think about wiring money back to someone.
• If the e-mail or phone caller says you received an inheritance or prize, "you do not have to pay for a prize. Ever.  Did they say you have an inheritance? Talk to someone you trust. What does that person think?"

If you have already sent money to a scammer, it's gone and you probably won't get it back. So, file a complaint with the FTC. Chances are the scammer will contact you again, since they (or their associates) were successful already. Don't give them any more money.

Medicare Scams Still Operate. How To Avoid Getting Your Identity Information Stolen

To minimize fraud, the new Medicare cards display a unique 11-digit identification number instead of patients' Social Security numbers. However, scammers have created a new tactic to trick patients into revealing their sensitive Medicare information. The Oregon Department of Justice warned:

"If someone calls and asks you for your personal information, money to activate the new card, or threatens to cancel your Medicare benefits if you don’t share your personal information, just hang up! It is a scam," said Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum.

Medicare will not call you nor ask for your Social Security number or bank information. That's good advice for patients nationwide. Experts estimate that Medicare loses about $60 billion yearly to con artists via a variety of scams.

Oregon residents suspecting healthcare fraud or wanting to report scammers, should contact Oregon's Department of Justice’s Consumer Protection (hotline: 1-877-877-9392 or www.oregonconsumer.gov). Consumers in other states should contact their state's attorney general, and/or report suspected fraud directly to Medicare.

The video below from 2017 includes advice about how patients should protect their Medicare cards.

New Technologies Will Soon Make It More Difficult For Consumers To Spot Fake News

We've all heard the old saying: seeing is believing. Right? Not necessarily anymore.

New technologies  will soon make it very easy for bad actors to manipulate videos of people -- politicians, law enforcement officials, celebrities, or anyone -- to say things they never said. This will cause many problems, one of which will be the increasing difficulty, or impossibility, for consumers to spoke fake news. CBS News explained:

"It starts with a selfie. Using that simple image, Hao Li, CEO of Los Angeles-based Pinscreen, can manipulate someone's face. You can literally put words in someone else's mouth. Li said it's all part of building a new virtual chat room world, but this type of advanced artificial intelligence technology is raising real eyebrows... For example, someone could take an image of President Trump and make him say something he didn't really say. Li said these kind of things are already possible in some ways. Comedian Jordan Peele used lip sync technology in a public service announcement (PSA) out Tuesday, warning against the dangers of fake news..."

Below is the PSA by Peele, which has already gotten more than 2.3 million views:

This is more confirmation that artificial intelligence is ripe for misuse by bad actors. The CBS News report also described some of the efforts by software developers to quickly create tools to spot manipulated images and video. Here's why:

"... at Pinscreen, Li said it won't take long before the line between what's real or not is erased. "It might be a year actually." "

Watch the entire CBS News report. These new image/video detection tools can't come soon enough. Consumers will need them. Journalists, military, intelligence, government watch-dog agencies, and corporate executives will need them, too. One can easily imagine bad actors using A.I. and other new technologies to create fake endorsements by celebrities of products, services, and/or politicians they really didn't endorse. What are your opinions?

2017 FTC Complaints Report: Debt Collection Tops The List. Older Consumers Better At Spotting Scams

Earlier this month,, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released its annual report of complaints submitted by consumers in the United States. The report is helpful is understand the most frequent types of scams and reports consumers experienced.

The latest report, titled 2017 Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book, includes complaints from 2.68 million consumers, a decrease from 2.98 million in 2016. However, consumers reported losing a total of $905 million to fraud in 2017, which is $63 million more than in 2016. The most frequent complaints were about debt collection (23 percent), identity theft (14 percent), and imposter scams (13 percent). The top 20 complaint categories:

Rank	Category	# Of Reports	% Of Reports
1	Debt Collection	608,535	22.74%
2	Identity Theft	371,061	13.87%
3	Imposter Scams	347,829	13.00%
4	Telephone & Mobile Services	149,578	5.59%
5	Banks & Lenders	149,316	5.58%
6	Prizes, Sweepstakes & Lotteries	142,870	5.34%
7	Shop-at-Home & Catalog Sales	126,387	4.72%
8	Credit Bureaus, Information Furnishers & Report Users	107,473	4.02%
9	Auto Related	86,289	3.23%
10	Television and Electronic Media	47,456	1.77%
11	Credit Cards	45,428	1.70%
12	Internet Services	45,093	1.69%
13	Foreign Money Offers & Counterfeit Check Scams	31,980	1.20%
14	Health Care	27,660	1.03%
15	Travel, Vacations & Timeshare Plans	22,264	0.83%
16	Business & Job Opportunities	19,082	0.71%
17	Advance Payments for Credit Services	17,762	0.66%
18	Investment Related	15,079	0.56%
19	Computer Equipment & Software	9,762	0.36%
20	Mortgage Foreclosure Relief & Debt Management	8,973	0.34%

While the median loss for all fraud reports in 2017 was $429, consumers reported larger losses in certain types of scams: travel, vacations and timeshare plans ($1,710); mortgage foreclosure relief and debt management ($1,200); and business/job opportunities ($1,063).

The telephone was the most frequently-reported method (70 percent) scammers used to contact consumers, and  wire transfers was the most frequently-reported payment method for fraud ($333 million in losses reported). Also:

"The states with the highest per capita rates of fraud reports in 2017 were Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Delaware, and Michigan. For identity theft, the top states in 2017 were Michigan, Florida, California, Maryland, and Nevada."

What's new in this report is that it details financial losses by age group. The FTC report concluded:

"Consumers in their twenties reported losing money to fraud more often than those over age 70. For example, among people aged 20-29 who reported fraud, 40 percent indicated they lost money. In comparison, just 18 percent of those 70 and older who reported fraud indicated they lost any money. However, when these older adults did report losing money to a scammer, the median amount lost was greater. The median reported loss for people age 80 and older was $1,092 compared to $400 for those aged 20-29."

Detailed information supporting this conclusion:

The second chart is key. Twice as many younger consumers (40 percent, ages 20 - 29) reported fraud losses compared to 18 percent of consumers ages 70 and older. At the same time, those older consumers lost more money. So, older consumers were more skilled at spotting scams and few fell victim to scams. It seems both groups could learn from each other.

CBS News interviewed a millennial who fell victim to a mystery-shopper scam, which seemed to be a slick version of the old check scam. It seems wise for all consumers, regardless of age, to maintain awareness about the types of scams. Pick a news source or blog you trust. Hopefully, this blog.

Below is a graphic summarizing the 2017 FTC report:

Net Neutrality: Massachusetts Joins Multi-State Lawsuit Against FCC. What Next?

The Attorney General (AG) for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is suing the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) after the FCC voted on December 14th to repeal existing net neutrality rules protecting consumers. Maura Healey, the Massachusetts AG, announced that her office has joined a multi-state lawsuit with the New York State AG:

"... joined New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman in announcing that they will be filing a multi-state lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over its vote to rollback net neutrality protections...The FCC recently issued a proposed final order rolling back net neutrality protections and on December 14th, voted 3-2 on party lines to implement the final order. On December 13th, AG Healey joined a coalition of 18 attorneys general in sending a letter to the FCC after reports emerged that nearly two million comments submitted in support of the agency were fake."

AG Healey said about the multi-state lawsuit:

"With the FCC vote, Americans will pay more for the internet and will have fewer options... The agency has completely failed to justify this decision and we will be suing to stand up for the free exchange of ideas and to keep the American people in control of internet access."

The December 13th letter to the FCC about fake comments was signed by AGs from California, District of Columbia, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Vermont, and Washington. The AGs' letter stated, in part:

"One of the most important roles that we perform is to prosecute fraud. It is a role we take extremely seriously, and one that is essential to a fair marketplace... The ‘Restore Internet Freedom’ proposal, also known as net neutrality rollback (WC Docket No. 17- 108) has far-reaching implications for the everyday life of Americans... Recent attempts by New York Attorney General Schneiderman to investigate supposed comments received by the FCC have revealed a pattern of facts that should raise alarm bells for every American about the integrity of the democratic process. A careful review of the publicly available information revealed a pattern of fake submissions using the names of real people. In fact, there may be over one million fake submissions from across the country. This is akin to identity theft on a massive scale – and theft of someone’s voice in a democracy is particularly concerning.

As state Attorneys General, many of our offices have received complaints from consumers indicating their distress over their names being used in such a manner. While we will investigate these consumer complaints through our normal processes, we urge the Commission to take immediate action and to cooperate with law enforcement investigations. Woven throughout the Administrative Procedures Act is a duty for rulemakers to provide information to the public and to listen to the public. We know from advising our rulemakers at the state level that listening to the public provides insights from a diversity of viewpoints. But, if the well of public comment has been poisoned by falsified submissions, the Commission may be unable to rely on public comments that would help it reach a legitimate conclusion to the rulemaking process. Or, it must give less weight to the public comments submitted which also undermines the process..."

The FCC ignored the AGs' joint letter about fraud and proceeded with its net-neutrality vote on December 14. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai had blown off the identity theft and fraud charges as maneuvers by desperate net neutrality advocates.

California AG Xavier Becerra said:

"... the FCC failed to do what is right... The FCC decided that consumers do not deserve free, open, and equal access to the internet. It decided to ignore the millions of Americans who voiced their strong support for our existing net neutrality rules. Here in California – a state that is home to countless start-ups and technology giants alike – we know that a handful of powerful companies should not dictate the sources for the information we seek..."

Residents in some states can use special sites to notify their state's AG about the misuse of their identity data in fake comments submitted to the FCC: Pennsylvania, New York.

The FCC under Chairman Pai seems to listen and respond to the needs of corporate internet service providers (ISPs), and not to consumers. A November 21 - 25 poll found that 52 percent of registered voters support the current rules, including 55 percent of Democrats and 53 percent of Republicans.

While that is down from prior polls, a majority support net neutrality rules. A poll by Mozilla and Ipsos in June, 2017 found overwhelming support across party lines: 76% of Americans, 81% of Democrats, and 73% of Republicans favor keeping net neutrality rules. The poll included approximately 1,000 American adults across the U.S. with 354 Democrats, 344 Republicans, and 224 Independents.

Before the FCC affirmed net neutrality rules in 2015, a poll by the Center for Political Communication at the University of Delaware in 2014 found strong and widespread support:

"... About 81 percent of Americans oppose allowing Internet providers like Comcast and Verizon to charge Web sites and services more if they want to reach customers more quickly... Republicans were slightly more likely to support net neutrality than Democrats. 81 percent of Democrats and 85 percent of Republicans in the survey said they opposed fast lanes."

Experts have debated the various ways of moving forward after the December 14th FCC vote. Wired reported:

"Most immediately, the activity will move to the courts... The most likely argument: that the commission’s decision violates federal laws barring agencies from crafting “arbitrary and capricious” regulations. After all, the FCC’s net neutrality rules were just passed in 2015... as capricious as the current FCC's about-face may seem, legal experts say the challenges won’t be a slam-dunk case. Federal agencies are allowed to change their minds about previous regulations, so long as they adequately explain their reasoning... The FCC's main argument for revoking the 2015 rules is that the regulations hurt investment in broadband infrastructure. But, as WIRED recently detailed, many broadband providers actually increased their investments, while those that cut back on spending told shareholders that the net neutrality rules didn't affect their plans. University of Pennsylvania Law School professor Christopher Yoo says courts generally defer to an agency's expertise in interpreting evidence submitted into the record... net neutrality advocates could also argue that the agency's decision-making process was corrupted by the flood of fake comments left by bots. But FCC Chair AJit Pai will argue that the agency discarded low-quality and repeated comments and focused only on matters of substance... A long-term solution to net neutrality will require Congress to pass laws that won't change every time control of the White House passes to another party... Senator John Thune (R-South Dakota) recently called for Congress to pass bipartisan net neutrality legislation. In 2015, Thune and Representative Fred Upton (R-Michigan) introduced a bill that would have banned blocking or slowing legal content, but limited the FCC's authority over internet service providers. It never moved forward. Thune is clearly hoping that growing demand from the public for net neutrality protections will bring more Republicans to the table... Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) told WIRED earlier this year that he won't support a bill with weaker protections than the 2015 rules..."

President Trump appointed Pai as FCC Chairman in January, giving the Republican commissioners at the FCC a voting majority. Neither the President nor the White House staff said anything in its daily e-mail blast or in their website about the FCC vote; and instead discussed tax reform, general remarks about reducing regulation, and infrastructure (e.g., roads, bridges, tunnels).

Seems to me the internet is a key component of our country's infrastructure. What are your opinions? If your state isn't in the above list, we'd like to hear from you, too.

Doug Jones Wins In Alabama, Net Neutrality, And The FCC

[7:30 am EST] Congratulations to Doug Jones and his supporters for a stunning victory Tuesday in a special election in Alabama for the open U.S. Senate seat. His victory speech is available online. Late last month, Doug Jones tweeted this:

I strongly support #NetNeutrality and believe every Alabamian should have access to a free and open internet.https://t.co/3XZ9ikWGaa

— Doug Jones (@GDouglasJones) November 28, 2017

Later today, the commissioners at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will likely vote during their December 2017 Open Commission Meeting to kill net neutrality rules protecting consumers free and open internet access. The planned vote comes despite clear and mounting evidence of widespread identity theft by unknown persons to submit fake comments distorting and polluting FCC record and website soliciting feedback from the public.

Yesterday, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel released the following press release:

"Upon receipt of a letter from New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman stating that it now appears that two million Americans’ identities may have been misused in the FCC record and a separate letter from 18 State Attorneys General calling on the FCC to delay its net neutrality vote because of its “tainted” record, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel released the following statement:

“This is crazy. Two million people have had their identities stolen in an effort to corrupt our public record. Nineteen State Attorneys General from across the country have asked us to delay this vote so they can investigate. And yet, in less than 24 hours we are scheduled to vote on wiping out our net neutrality protections. We should not vote on any item that is based on this corrupt record. I call on my colleagues to delay this vote so we can get to the bottom of this mess.” "

Despite the widespread identity theft and fraud, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has maintained his position to proceed with a vote today to kill net neutrality protections for consumers. President Trump appointed Pai as FCC Chairman in January, giving the Republican commissioners a majority when voting. Pai has blown off the identity theft and fraud charges as maneuvers by desperate net neutrality advocates.

[Update at 2:20 pm EST: earlier today, the FCC commissioners voted along party lines to kill existing net neutrality rules protecting consumers.]

Equifax Reported 15.2 Million Records Of U.K. Persons Exposed

Yesterday, Equifax's United Kingdom (UK) unit released a press release about the credit reporting agency's massive data breach and the number of breach victims. A portion of the statement:

"It has always been Equifax’s intention to write to those consumers whose information had been illegally compromised, but it would have been inappropriate and irresponsible of us to do so before we had absolute clarity on what data had been accessed. Following the completion of an independent investigation into the attack, and with agreement from appropriate investigatory authorities, Equifax has begun corresponding with affected consumers.

We would like to take this opportunity to emphasize that Equifax correspondence will never ask consumers for money or cite personal details to seek financial information, and if they receive such correspondence they should not respond. For security reasons, we will not be making any outbound telephone calls to consumers. However, customers can call our Freephone number on 0800 587 1584 for more information.

Today Equifax can confirm that a file containing 15.2m UK records dating from between 2011 and 2016 was attacked in this incident. Regrettably this file contained data relating to actual consumers as well as sizeable test data-sets, duplicates and spurious fields... we have been able to place consumers into specific risk categories and define the services to offer them in order to protect against those risks and send letters to offer them Equifax and third-party safeguards with instructions on how to get started. This work has enabled us to confirm that we will need to contact 693,665 consumers by post... The balance of the 14.5m records potentially compromised may contain the name and date of birth of certain UK consumers. Whilst this does not introduce any significant risk to these people Equifax is sorry that this data may have been accessed."

Below is the tabular information of risk categories from the Equifax UK announcement:

Consumer groups	Remedial action
12,086 consumers who had an email address associated with their Equifax.co.uk account in 2014 accessed 14,961 consumers who had portions of their Equifax.co.uk membership details such as username, password, secret questions and answers and partial credit card details - from 2014 accessed 29,188 consumers who had their driving license number accessed	We will offer Equifax Protect for free. This is an identity protection service which monitors personal data. Products and services from third party organizations will also be offered at no cost to consumers. In addition to the services set-out above, further information will be outlined in the correspondence.
637,430 consumers who had their phone numbers accessed	Consumers who had a phone number accessed will be offered a leading identity monitoring service for free.

Some observations seem warranted.

First, the announcement was vague about whether the 15.2 million U.K. persons affected were included in the prior breach total, or in addition to the prior total. Second, the U.K. unit will send written breach notices to all affected consumers via postal mail, while the U.S. unit refused. The U.K. unit did the right thing, so their users are confused by and don't have to access a hastily built site to see if they were affected.

Third, given the data elements stolen some U.K. breach victims are vulnerable to additional frauds and threats like breach victims in the USA.

Kudos to the Equifax U.K. unit for the postal breach notices and for clearly stating the above risk categories.

Equifax: 2.5 Million More Persons Affected By Massive Data Breach

Equifax disclosed on Monday, October 2, that 2.5 more persons than originally announced were affected by its massive data breach earlier this year. According to the Equifax breach website:

"... cybersecurity firm Mandiant has completed the forensic portion of its investigation of the cybersecurity incident disclosed on September 7 to finalize the consumers potentially impacted... The completed review determined that approximately 2.5 million additional U.S. consumers were potentially impacted, for a total of 145.5 million. Mandiant did not identify any evidence of additional or new attacker activity or any access to new databases or tables. Instead, this additional population of consumers was confirmed during Mandiant’s completion of the remaining investigative tasks and quality assurance procedures built into the investigative process."

The September breach announcement said that persons outside the United States may have been affected. The October 2nd update addressed that, too:

"The completed review also has concluded that there is no evidence the attackers accessed databases located outside of the United States. With respect to potentially impacted Canadian citizens, the company previously had stated that there may have been up to 100,000 Canadian citizens impacted... The completed review subsequently determined that personal information of approximately 8,000 Canadian consumers was impacted. In addition, it also was determined that some of the consumers with affected credit cards announced in the company’s initial statement are Canadian. The company will mail written notice to all of the potentially impacted Canadian citizens."

So, things are worse than originally announced in September: more United States citizens affected, fewer Canadian citizens affected overall but more Canadians' credit card information exposed, and we still don't know the number of United Kingdom residents affected:

"The forensic investigation related to United Kingdom consumers has been completed and the resulting information is now being analyzed in the United Kingdom. Equifax is continuing discussions with regulators in the United Kingdom regarding the scope of the company’s consumer notifications...

And, there's this statement by Paulino do Rego Barros, Jr., the newly appointed interim CEO (after former CEO Richard Smith resigned):

"... As this important phase of our work is now completed, we continue to take numerous steps to review and enhance our cybersecurity practices. We also continue to work closely with our internal team and outside advisors to implement and accelerate long-term security improvements..."

To review? That means Equifax has not finished the job of making its systems and websites more secure with security fixes based upon how the attackers broke in, which identify attacks earlier, and which prevent future breaches. As bad as this sounds, the reality is probably worse.

After testimony before Congress by former Equifax CEO Richard Smith, Wired documented "six fresh horrors" about the breach and the leisurely approach by the credit reporting agency's executives. First, this about the former CEO:

"... during Tuesday's hearing, former CEO Smith added that he first heard about "suspicious activity" in a customer-dispute portal, where Equifax tracks customer complaints and efforts to correct mistakes in their credit reports, on July 31. He moved to hire cybersecurity experts from the law firm King & Spalding to start investigating the issue on August 2. Smith claimed that, at that time, there was no indication that any customer's personally identifying information had been compromised. As it turns out, after repeated questions from lawmakers, Smith admitted he never asked at the time whether PII being affected was even a possibility. Smith further testified that he didn't ask for a briefing about the "suspicious activity" until August 15, almost two weeks after the special investigation began and 18 days after the initial red flag."

Didn't ask about PII? Geez! PII describes the set of data elements which are the most sensitive information about consumers. It's the business of being a credit reporting agency. Waited 2 weeks for a briefing? Not good either. And, that is a most generous description since some experts question whether the breach actually started in March -- about four months before the July event.

Wired reported the following about Smith's Congressional testimony and the March breach:

"Attackers initially got into the affected customer-dispute portal through a vulnerability in the Apache Struts platform, an open-source web application service popular with corporate clients. Apache disclosed and patched the relevant vulnerability on March 6... Smith said there are two reasons the customer-dispute portal didn't receive that patch, known to be critical, in time to prevent the breach. The first excuse Smith gave was "human error." He says there was a particular (unnamed) individual who knew that the portal needed to be patched but failed to notify the appropriate IT team. Second, Smith blamed a scanning system used to spot this sort of oversight that did not identify the customer-dispute portal as vulnerable. Smith said forensic investigators are still looking into why the scanner failed."

Geez! Sounds like a managerial failure, too. Nobody followed up with the unnamed persons responsible for patching the portal? And Equifax executives took a leisurely (and perhaps lackadaisical) approach to protecting sensitive information about consumers:

"When asked by representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois about what data Equifax encrypts in its systems, Smith admitted that the data compromised in the customer-dispute portal was stored in plaintext and would have been easily readable by attackers... It’s unclear exactly what of the pilfered data resided in the portal versus other parts of Equifax’s system, but it turns out that also didn’t matter much, given Equifax's attitude toward encryption overall. “OK, so this wasn’t [encrypted], but your core is?” Kinzinger asked. “Some, not all," Smith replied. "There are varying levels of security techniques that the team deploys in different environments around the business."

Geez! So, we now have confirmation that the "core" information -- the most sensitive data about consumers -- in Equifax's databases is only partially encrypted.

Context matters. In January of this year, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) took punitive action against TransUnion and Equifax for deceptive marketing practices involving credit scores and related subscription services. That action included $23.1 million in fines and penalties.

Thanks to member of Congress for asking the tough questions. No thanks to Equifax executives for taking lackadaisical approaches to data security. (TransUnion, Innovis, and Experian executives: are you watching? Learning what mistakes not to repeat?) Equifax has lost my trust.

Until Equifax hardens its systems (I prefer NSA-level hardness), it shouldn't be entrusted with consumers' sensitive personal and payment information. Consumers should be able to totally opt out of credit reporting agencies that fail with data security. This would allow the marketplace to govern things and stop the corporate socialism benefiting credit reporting agencies.

What are your opinions?

[Editor's note: this post was amended on October 7 with information about the CFPB fines.]