Steve D. Ballantyne

4 Followers
14 Following
63 Posts

A nearly 50 year old dude, with nearly 30 years of marriage, and nearly 20 years working for the same community hospital. A former PC builder and servicer, Instructor, Network Security Analyst, and now a Cybersecurity specialist.

#cybersecurity #healthcare #paloalto #crowdstrike #cissp

As American citizens gather in a show of pride and love for themselves, and others - our president feels the need to counter these peaceful gatherings with a parade of soldiers and machines of war.

We are literally fighting love with war. And many will cheer it on. Because that is how absolutely stupid we have become.

What a time to be alive.

Putting the burden of cyberattacks onto "the States" is a horrible idea. There is nothing good that will come of this. To say that this will save the taxpayer a few bucks is ridiculous given the true cost of a ransomware event in government or healthcare.

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3851885/trump-shifts-cyberattack-readiness-to-state-and-local-governments-in-wake-of-intel-sharing-cuts.html

#security #fucktrump #healthcare

Trump shifts cyberattack readiness to state and local governments in wake of info-sharing cuts

Shifting the burden of managing cyber emergencies to state and local governments while scaling back federal information-sharing groups could leave local, underfunded CISOs and CIOs less prepared for critical infrastructure attacks.

CSO Online

Stock markets around the world fell on Monday, a day after President Trump did not rule out the possibility that his aggressive trade policies aimed at crucial economic partners could cause a recession this year. Mr. Trump’s trade war with China intensified on Monday as Beijing began imposing retaliatory tariffs on a range of American farm products. The S&P 500 was down more than 2 percent at midday.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/03/10/us/president-trump-news#stock-market-economy-tariffs-recession

Trump Live Updates: U.S. Stocks Plunge as Economic Fears Grow and Latest Tariffs News

The New York Times

Old compromised LastPass accounts lead to massive Crypto thefts. Lessons learned: do not record the passphrases for your crypto wallet (aka GOLDEN KEYS) in a cloud based password vault!

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/03/feds-link-150m-cyberheist-to-2022-lastpass-hacks/

#hacking

Feds Link $150M Cyberheist to 2022 LastPass Hacks – Krebs on Security

This is how idiot bullies and dictators deal with people that they disagree with. Shame on Trump. Shame on this country.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/demonstrators-take-nycs-federal-plaza-mahmoud-khalil-arrested-ice-rcna195602

Judge says Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil can't be deported as protesters call for his release

As hundreds of demonstrators rallied in New York City on Monday to demand the release of Mahmoud Khalil, a federal judge just steps away blocked the Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate's removal from the United States.

NBC News

I am annoyed that the former director of the National Security Administration is failing to mention the elephant in the room in regards to AI and healthcare - which is LEGALITY.

No hospital should be using an AI product without a bound BSA, which the major players (MS included) are not agreeing to. Because they are well aware that uploading patient data into a deep learning engine is foolish. This is going to lead to some very expensive class action suits down the road.

https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/former-us-cyber-commander-urges-healthcare-think-differently-about-ai

#law #ai #healthcare

Former U.S. Cyber Commander urges healthcare to think differently about AI

At HIMSS25, Gen. Paul Nakasone, former director of the National Security Administration, said the unique challenges and opportunities of artificial intelligence in healthcare mean, "we all must be willing to take a few microsteps."

Healthcare IT News

@JauntyArt

LinkedIn: "immobilization through integration"

“Torrenting from a corporate laptop doesn’t feel right”: Meta emails unsealed

Meta's alleged torrenting and seeding of pirated books complicates copyright case.

Ars Technica

The CISA recently posted an advisory on a Contec CMS8000 monitoring device and how it contains a backdoor to a Chinese network.

Here is a write up that a friend sent me which contains the IP addresses and a teardown of the firmware. This article also illustrates that this was likely just lousy design - and not an intentional backdoor.

https://claroty.com/team82/research/are-contec-cms8000-patient-monitors-infected-with-a-chinese-backdoor-the-reality-is-more-complicated?ref=vault33.org

#hacking #healthcare

Do the CONTEC CMS8000 Patient Monitors Contain a Chinese Backdoor? The Reality is More Complicated…

Team82 investigated what CISA labeled a backdoor in the Contec CMS8000 patient monitoring system and concluded that instead, the decision to include a hardcoded IP address is instead an insecure and risky design choice on the part of the vendor.

Claroty

UnitedHealthcare CISO, Steve Martin, says that the road to recovery from a ransomware attack involved "new routers, new switches, new compute infrastructure, deployed everything from a safe environment, truly started over."

Because nothing says "I don't know what I am doing" like a guy who runs around replacing everything but the software, the people, or the processes that would have prevented the attack to begin with.

https://cyberscoop.com/unitedhealth-group-steven-martin-ciso-ransomware-attack-recovery/

#security #fail #healthcare

UnitedHealth Group CISO: We had to ‘start over’ after Change Healthcare attack

Steven Martin detailed the work recovering from the Change Healthcare attack, emphasizing that the mental toll was the toughest part of all.

CyberScoop