Latest cybersecurity reporting from selected sources.

Vital Service Providers Need a Plan to Work Through Internet Outages, CISA SaysCritical U.S. infrastructure like water, power and even banking systems will be successfully hacked by enemy cyber warriors in the event of a military confrontation with a peer adversary like Russia or China, officials from the nation's civilian cyber defense agency said.

Experts Warn of Faster and Higher Volume Attacks, Rising Patient Safety WorriesEmerging powerful AI tools - such as Anthropic's new Claude Mythos - that are capable of autonomously identifying and exploiting software bugs in a flash could reshape the healthcare cyber landscape by accelerating attacks and raising the risk of widespread operational disruption, experts said.

CISA: Iran-Linked Groups Actively Exploiting OT Exposure Risks, PLC ProgrammersFederal agencies are warning that Iranian-linked actors have begun actively exploiting internet-facing PLCs and misconfigured OT systems across U.S. critical infrastructure, enabling network access, lateral movement and potential disruption amid rising geopolitical tensions.

Signature Healthcare EHRs, Patient Portal Offline; Some Cancer Care CancelledA Massachusetts healthcare system is diverting ambulance patients and is operating under downtime procedures as it deals with a cyberattack. The organization has also canceled certain cancer treatments, taken its patient portal offline and is unable to fill prescriptions at its retail pharmacies.

Medical Device Manufacturer Hack Was Likely OpportunisticAn Iranian cyberattack on medical device maker Stryker's internal IT environment does not appear to affect connected products used by the company's healthcare clients. But an outage of Stryker's electronic ordering system could lead to supply chain issues for its customers.

IT Systems, Radiology Services Taken Offline; Ambulance Patients DivertedA North Central Massachusetts nonprofit healthcare system with two community hospitals, a medical group and several other care facilities has taken its IT network offline and is diverting ambulance patients as it continues to respond to a cyberattack that hit last week.

Space Policy and Tech Head Paul Liias on Dealing With Satellite VulnerabilitiesA major disruption of civil and military satellites could cause chaos on the ground to communications, navigation and other vital services. But the threats don't just come from missiles. They also comes from hackers who could exploit numerous vulnerabilities, said Estonia's Paul Liias.

Iranian Officials Call Internet Outages Intentional to Disrupt Israeli OperationsIranian officials said widespread internet outages were deliberate and meant to disrupt covert Israeli operations within the country following days of missile attacks from Israel and a rapidly escalating regional conflict that experts warn could trigger major cyberattacks on critical infrastructure.

Catholic Healthcare Organization Took IT Systems Offline in Response to IncidentCovenant Health, a Catholic healthcare organization serving New England and parts of Pennsylvania, is dealing with a cyber incident that has forced the entity to take its IT systems offline, affecting services at several of its facilities. That includes some hospitals and medical testing labs.

Quick Recovery Plans Needed As Nation-State Groups Target Critical InfrastructureNation state threats have been outpacing defense for decades, adapting and evolving much faster. Now they're also changing motivations, from information gathering and seeking economic advantage to apparently pre-positioning to cause disruption in a future hybrid war, said Rubrik's Travis Rosiek.

IT Outages Are Affecting Patient Services, NC Practice Is 'Temporarily Closed'A small North Carolina radiology practice and a 25-bed Pennsylvania hospital and are among the latest rural healthcare providers struggling to recover from recent cyberattacks that are disrupting their technology operations and affecting patient care services. How will this end up?

Biden-Era Cyber Aid Programs Are Still Available, But Future is UncertainEven though rural hospitals and other small healthcare providers don't have deep pockets, cybercriminals continue to target them with ransomware, often causing serious disruption and compromises affecting large swaths of patients. What can be done to help them strengthen cybersecurity?

Ransomware Attack Taught Lessons on Health Sector Resiliency, Vendor RedundancyIt's been one year since hackers attacked IT services provider Change Healthcare, quickly shutting down critical processes for thousands healthcare entities, triggering a data breach affecting 190 million people. So what top lessons are emerging from that massive disruption and data compromise?

IT Outage, Downtime Procedures Affecting Services at California Healthcare ProviderCybercriminals claim they stole 17 million patient records from a southern California regional healthcare provider that is still struggling with IT and phone systems outages that have been disrupting patient care since the organization was hit by a ransomware attack on Dec. 1.

The chaos experienced by thousands of healthcare organizations in the wake of the massive Change Healthcare cyberattack and IT outage in February is proof that most organizations are simply unprepared for such devastating incidents, said Bryan Chnowski, deputy CISO at Nuvance Health.

UK GCHQ Director Calls Chinese Hacking a 'Top Priority'Chinese-backed espionage and cyber disruption pose a major threat to global critical infrastructure as Beijing races for global edge, British and U.S. cyber officials warned Tuesday. Responding to the scale and complexity of Chinese hacking is a top British priority.

Wednesday Cyber Incident Shakes America's Largest Healthcare SystemThe Ascension healthcare system is sending away emergency patients and postponing nonemergency procedures as it digs out from a cyber incident that knocked its electronic health record systems offline with no immediate timetable for restoration.

Hospital Chain Advised Business Partners to 'Temporarily' Disconnect During ResponseAscension, a non-profit, Catholic healthcare system and one of the largest health systems in the United States, has taken some IT systems offline and advised business partners to disconnect from its IT environment as it responds to a cyberattack that's disrupting clinical services.

UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty Explains the Steps the Company Is TakingLawmakers on Wednesday grilled UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty over security lapses leading up to the Change Healthcare cyberattack and the company's handling of the incident, including the sectorwide disruption it caused and the compromise of millions of individuals' sensitive data.

Company Makes Progress Restoring IT Services, But Disruption LingersAs recovery from its Feb. 21 cyberattack continues, Change Healthcare and its parent company UnitedHealth Group are facing a growing pile of lawsuits, while health sector entities affected by the IT services disruption are dealing with a mounting stack of bills and other paperwork to catch up on.