Latest cybersecurity reporting from selected sources.

Also: Potential Fallout From HIPAA Rule Delay, AI Identity Governance ChallengesIn this week's panel, four ISMG editors discussed the rise of artificial intelligence-powered phishing toolkits, potential fallout from the U.S. government's decision to delay a major overhaul of the HIPAA Security Rule and what security leaders see as the defining AI security challenges of 2026.

Peter Justen of AmeriTrust on How Data Integrity Affects Benefits AdministrationArtificial intelligence is transforming healthcare and government benefits administration, but organizations must strengthen data quality and operational processes before expecting meaningful results, said Peter Justen, founder and CEO at AmeriTrust Solutions.

UK Government Said It Is Working With Chinese Officials to Remove ListingsThe U.K. government is working with Chinese officials to remove the sensitive de-identified data of 500,000 participants of the UK Biobank that was listed for sale on the Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba. U.K. officials said the incident did not appear to involve a cyberattack.

Healthcare Hit Shows Symbols Matter as Iran Shifts Focus to Economic DamageCybersecurity experts say that the Handala "hacktivist" group that claimed credit for attacks against two American firms on Wednesday is run by the Iranian government. The shift to destructive cyberattacks parallels Iran's attempt to inflict greater economic damage on the United States and allies.

More Than 100,000 Affected by Hack Detected on Dec. 30The New Zealand government is probing a year-end ransomware hack of private healthcare service provider Manage My Health that impacted thousands of patients. Digital extortion group Kazu has claimed responsibility and threatened to leak the data on Jan. 15 unless it receives a $60,000 ransom.

NIH Working on Fixes to Address National Security Risks and Weak Access ControlsThe sensitive health and genomics data of 1 million Americans used by a National Institutes of Health research project could be at risk for access or theft by bad actors, including foreign adversaries, a government watchdog group. Security weaknesses discovered in an audit are being addressed.

Also: Insights From ISMG's Global Events, Tenzai's $75 Million Seed RoundIn this week's panel, ISMG editors broke down the mounting pressure on the Department of Health and Human Services and its privacy and security operations, the $75 million seed round for autonomous pen testing startup Tenzai and key themes from ISMG's recent global summits and executive roundtables.

Conduent Gets Sued; US Government's Cyber Shutdown Woes; Hacktivist Hits RiseThe latest ISMG Editors' Panel tackles: post-hack legal fallout for Conduent after it suffered the year's biggest health data breach, the U.S. government's shutdown complicating its response to the breach of vendor F5 and the rise in attacks targeting Western critical national infrastructure.

Reduced Staffing Disrupts Regulatory Work, Leaves Health Entities More VulnerableIf it lasts much longer, the federal government shutdown could prove to be highly disruptive, risky and increasingly unnerving for healthcare sector providers that depend upon federal agencies for cybersecurity-related support and resources, some experts said.

82 Longstanding Recommendations on Data Protection, Security Still Not Acted UponThe U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has still not implemented 82 recommendations made in recent years involving "high risk" cybersecurity and IT management issues, said the Government Accountability Office in a new report directed at HHS' CIO and its various agency CIOs.

Ransomware Gang Nova Poised to Leak Patient Data, Lab Stays Mum on NegotiationsWith ransomware gang Nova threatening to leak patient data on the darkweb, a Dutch laboratory that performs cervical cancer tests for a government screening program is mum about the ransom negotiations, but it says the cyberattack in July has affected 941,000 patients.

Labour Government Also Backs Ransomware Payment Clearance and ReportingThe British government vowed Tuesday to proceed with a proposed ransomware payment ban for critical infrastructure organizations such as the National Health Service and to press forward on a mandate for other businesses to notify authorities in advance of paying out a ransom.

Geopolitical Conflict Involving Iran, Israel, US Ripe for Attacks on SectorGovernment authorities are warning of increased risk of Iranian cyber and related threats against healthcare and public health sector organizations - including ransomware, distributed denial-of-service and other attacks related to that nation's escalated conflicts with Israel and the U.S.

Group's Advisory Follows an Updated Joint Alert from US, Australian AgenciesThe American Hospital Association is warning hospitals and other healthcare sector organizations of rising double-extortion attack threats involving the Play ransomware group. The AHA alert follows an updated joint government advisory issued last week about Play's latest tactics.

Audits Focus on HIPAA Security Rule Provisions Related to Ransomware, HackingFederal regulators have quietly resumed compliance audits of HIPAA-regulated organizations. With the surge in ransomware and other hacks reported in recent years, the focus of the audits are on provisions of the HIPAA security rule most relevant to these attacks, said a government official.

As uncertainty mounts about the range of cyber resources the federal government will continue to offer healthcare and other critical infrastructure sectors during the Trump administration, states will need to step up their support, said Mike Hamilton, field CISO of cybersecurity firm Lumifi Cyber.

Experts Cast Nervous Eye on Musk and Team's Handling of Health-Related InfoPrivacy experts are keeping a nervous eye on the potential for compromises involving Americans' health and personal information resulting from the White House's Department of Government Efficiency - led by Elon Musk - accessing government IT systems containing Medicare and health related data.

Rule Aims to Stymie Weaponization of Americans' DataThe U.S. federal government finalized Friday regulations throttling the bulk commercial transfer to China and Russia of data pinpointing Americans' location, their health data, or biometric and genomic identifiers. The rule implements a February executive order from President Joe Biden.

Cyber incident details involving non-profit and non-government entities across sectors such as healthcare are not centrally reported and collected, creating gaps for researchers, IT experts and others seeking to analyze trends in their industries, said Stanley Mierzwa of Kean University.

LA County Clinic Delayed Access to Patient's Medical Records During PandemicFederal regulators have fined a Los Angeles county mental health clinic $100,000 for failure to provide a patient with timely access to her requested health records during the COVID-19 pandemic. The case is the U.S. government's 51st HIPAA patient right-of-access enforcement action.