The police force in England’s second-largest city, the Greater Manchester Police (GMP), has suffered extensive disruption for several days following an infection by the Conficker worm.
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It seems from a recent report that healthcare businesses have become a specific target for hackers in recent months. International managed security services company SecureWorks says that attempted hacker attacks launched at its healthcare clients doubled in Q4 2009, increasing from an average of 6,500 per healthcare client, per day in the first nine months of 2009, to an average of 13,400 per client per day in Q4 2009.

It’s suggested that there are two main reasons for this: the large amounts of identifiable data on patients stored within healthcare organisations, and the sheer number of possible attack vectors, including web-based attacks and attacks from devices (such as infected, unauthorised USB flash drives).

In some territories, such as the UK and Canada, healthcare bodies are rolling out extensive data security measures (such as secure USB drives with onboard anti-virus scanning). This is a sensible and practical response to the increase in data security risks.

The personal health records of over 83,000 Canadians have been lost on an unencrypted USB memory stick.

The device was lost by a member of staff from a centre in Ontario State, and contained data collected from everyone who attended H1N1 or seasonal flu vaccination clinics in the region over a period of nearly two months. The information included personal information such as names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, health card numbers, doctor’s names and so on. Read More »

It’s been a high-profile year for USB memory sticks: they have been the subject of many headlines thanks to a series of losses and theft incidents, and have been exploited as a new vector for spreading malware across networks (thanks to Conficker and related Autorun-exploiting worms). Read More »

Roy Ramati, General Manager, SanDisk Enterprise and the entire SanDisk Enterprise team wish you a safe holiday and a happy new year.

In 2008 we saw data losses, breaches and leaks becoming front-page news worldwide. Many of these leaks were from non secure USB memory sticks that were lost or stolen from their owners, putting corporate data and personal details at risk. We, at SanDisk Enterprise, offer a range of USB security solutions to assure secure USB drive usage for your organization in 2009 and beyond.

As the Christmas holidays approach and staff begin to wind down, it’s wise not to let your organisation’s security stance relax. 

 A number of IT news sites are already running stories about what they expect the biggest security threats will be this year and, perhaps for the first time, USB security is on the list.

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We’ve appointed DNS Arrow, one of the UK’s leading specialist security-focused distributors, to help drive further growth in the USB security and USB encryption markets there. 

 Working with DNS Arrow, we will be able to give better service to existing resellers and customers, and open up new market opportunities for our secure USB flash drives. 

 With the UK data leak protection (DLP) market growing quickly, following a year of high-profile losses from Government departments and the public sector, the relationship with DNS Arrow will help resellers develop existing and new USB encryption and anti-malware business.

 Details of the appointment are here.

Do you really know how many people are using USB flash drives in your organisation? Don’t worry if you’re not sure - a majority of IT professionals are equally uncertain.

Our April 2008 survey found that 77% of corporate end users had used personal USB flash drives for work purposes. Yet IT managers estimated that just 35% of their workforce used personal drives. So how do you bridge that security gap, and protect the sensitive business data on flash drives? Here are our top 10 tips.

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Last week, Wired began reporting that the US Army has banned the use of USB drives after a worm that spreads by copying itself to thumb drives or other removable media infiltrated Army networks.

It’s not the first time malware has been spread through this vector. In May, 2007 the SillyFD-AA worm spread by copying itself onto removable media such as USB flash drives, then automatically running when that drive was connected to a PC. The following month, the LiarVB-A worm surfaced. Like the SillyFD-AA worm, it too spread by copying itself onto removable drives such as USB flash drives and running as soon as the device connected to a PC.

And more recently, in August 2008, NASA made headlines after the TGammima.AG worm infected a computer on the International Space Station. And how did it get there? Via a USB flash drive.

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Howard County General Hospital USB security Selection

Howard County General Hospital in Columbia, Maryland, has selected SanDisk’s Cruzer® Enterprise secure USB flash drives and Central Management & Control (CMC) server software to protect highly confidential medical and organizational data.

Part of the Johns Hopkins Medicine health care system, Howard County General Hospital (HCGH) is a comprehensive medical center providing services to more than 165,000 people a year, with a staff of 1,700 full-time and part-time employees, as well as more than 800 physicians and other allied health professionals. Read More »