Latest cybersecurity reporting from selected sources.

Device Maker Is Still Investigating March 11 Attack Claimed by Iranian HacktivistsMedical tech maker Stryker said it has restored its systems and is operational across its global manufacturing network three weeks after a wiper attack by Iranian hacktivist group Handala led to a worldwide outage at the company. The firm is continuing to investigate the incident.

Cause Unknown But Many Previous Outages Due to Software MisconfigurationVerizon customers along the Eastern Seaboard and Southern parts of the United States lost mobile phone connectivity Wednesday in an incident that appears to have peaked around 1 p.m.

Finnish Border Guard Seize Cargo Ship Suspected of Causing DisruptionFinnish police on Wednesday seized a cargo ship sailing from Russia suspected of rupturing an undersea telecommunication cable connecting Helsinki to Estonia, a region of the Baltic Sea that is the site of a slew of suspected Russian cable sabotage incidents.

Outage Briefly Took Down Zoom, LinkedIn and Other WebsitesContent delivery network giant Cloudflare is investigating a brief outage early Friday that took down multiple websites. The incident marks the second outage in the span of a month, although the causes are unrelated. It stemmed from how Cloudflare's web application firewall parses requests.

Cybersecurity Programs, Workforce Face Disruption If Congress Fails to ActA potential government shutdown threatens to gut federal cybersecurity operations, with key programs set to expire, agency cyber staff facing layoffs and no public contingency plans in place - leaving core defenses, threat sharing and incident response at risk.

Nevada Grappling With Statewide IT Disruption, Forcing Suspension of ServicesNevada officials are investigating a network security breach that forced state offices to suspend services and knocked key systems offline, including websites and phone lines, though emergency services remain active and no data exposure has been confirmed.

Nevada Grappling with Statewide IT Disruption, Forcing Suspension of ServicesNevada officials are investigating a network security breach that forced state offices to suspend services and knocked key systems offline, including websites and phone lines, though emergency services remain active and no data exposure has been confirmed.

Support Portals Offline as Ransomware Gang Claims It Stolen DataBritish-based multinational telecom Colt Technology Services said a "cyber incident" is responsible for days-long disruptions to its customer portal and support services. The WarLock ransomware operation took responsibility for the hack, asserting it stole "1 million documents."

SafePay Ransomware Blamed for Prolonged System OutageGlobal tech distributor and service provider Ingram Micro confirmed days after a widespread IT outage that a ransomware attack disrupted internal systems. The firm disclosed the incident following reports that extortion demands associated with SafePay ransomware appeared on employee devices.

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.

Retailer Continues to Recover From Ransomware IncidentBritish retailer Marks & Spencer was reportedly targeted by financial crime group Scattered Spider, who deployed ransomware on the company's VMware ESXi server. The retailer continues to recover from a cyber incident that disrupted operations in its online and offline stores.

Expert Lauds 'Textbook Cyber Crisis Communications' as M&S Details Some DisruptionIt's rare to see a corporation lauded for its hacking incident communications, but British retailer Marks and Spencer has executed an admirable version of what informing the world of bad news should look like. M&S notified customers directly about the cybersecurity incident.

Palo Alto, CrowdStrike, Zscaler Eye Firewall, SIEM Replacement, Incident RecoveryThree of the world's largest pure-play cybersecurity vendors recently reported earnings, grappling with SIEM and firewall displacement opportunities along with rebounding from a massive outage. Palo Alto Networks Continues to reap the benefits of buying IBM's QRadar SaaS business.

CEO George Kurtz on New Recovery Techniques and Controls Implemented Post-IncidentCEO George Kurtz said CrowdStrike has blunted the business impact from the massive July 19 outage and is implementing changes to prevent a repeat occurrence. CrowdStrike is boosting the resilience of its Falcon platform through improved content visibility and control and enhanced quality assurance.

Company Reportedly Instructs Staff to Not Connect to Internal IT SystemsOil services giant Halliburton is reportedly dealing with a disruption tied to a Wednesday hack attack, after which the Houston-based firm advised employees to not connect to any internal IT resources - a sign that the incident could be a ransomware attack.

London Incident Is Latest Major Ongoing Outage From Recent Ransomware AttacksA cyberattack on a U.K. laboratory services provider is disrupting patient care and testing services at several London-based NHS hospitals and other care facilities. Meanwhile, in the U.S., Ascension is providing a restoration timeline for its hospital EHRs in the wake of its attack.

Even the Threat of Disruption Plays Into Attackers' Hands, Says Ian Thornton-TrumpDefenders of operational technology environments should look beyond the technical controls and incident response plans they've put in place. They also need to consider how attackers might undermine confidence in the service itself, says Ian Thornton-Trump, CISO of Cyjax.

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.

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.

The vast healthcare ecosystem disruption caused by the recent attack on Change Healthcare, which affected more than 100 of the company's IT products and services, underscores the concentrated cyber risk when a major vendor suffers a serious cyber incident, said Keith Fricke, partner at tw-Security.