What You Can Learn from the Russian Army, the US Navy, and a Suspended Nurse

by Mike Semel

Originally published by:

The General Counsel at one of our clients is a former district attorney who prosecuted identity theft cases. When I told him we work with people who think Identity Theft is a victimless crime, he got very angry, and rattled off a list of cases he had tried that had lasting damage to the victims. Cybercrimes and compliance violations are not victimless.

Identity theft victims have suffered threats of violence, financial ruin, threats of arrest, effects of business interruptions, damaged careers, and emotional and physical stress.  Some considered suicide.

Most data breaches are malicious, but some who committed bad acts did not know they were breaking laws. They thought their actions were just ‘mischief’, or mistakenly thought what they were doing was OK, but found out the hard way that they had committed crimes. Their careers were killed and some faced criminal charges. Some blamed their training, which may have been incomplete, but ignorance of the law is no excuse.

SPEAR-PHISHING by the RUSSIAN ARMY

Twelve members of the GRU, the Russian military intelligence service, were indicted by the United States for meddling with our elections, by using spear-phishing techniques that were remarkably effective. Those who were targeted suffered public shame and career damage.

Phishing is when hackers send out broadly-targeted e-mails, seemingly from banks, fax services, and businesses, trying to sucker many people into clicking on the link and sharing their personal data, or having malicious software silently install on their computer.

Spear-phishing is when a personally-targeted message is sent just to you, seemingly from a colleague or vendor - using names you recognize - asking you to send sensitive information or to click on a link that will install malicious software. These messages can be very tough to spot, because the hackers make you think that this is a personal message from someone you know. One popular method is to send the message from an e-mail address that is one or two letters different from a real address. Your eyes play tricks and you miss the slight difference in the address.

Spear-phishing resulted in the Russians allegedly getting the logins and passwords of Democratic and Republican party officials, which they used to get access to e-mails and other sensitive data.

Another attack resulted in a company’s HR staff sending its W-2 tax details, including all employee Social Security Numbers, at the request of their CEO, who actually was a hacker using a very similar e-mail address to those at the targeted company. Employees filed their tax returns, only to find out the hackers had already filed tax returns and gotten refunds, using their names and Social Security Numbers. Now these employees are on special lists of victims, delaying their future tax refunds; making it more difficult to get loans and maintain their credit; and creating real stress and anxiety.

Spear-phishing has been used successfully by hackers to get a CFO to transfer money to a hacker’s bank account, at the supposed request of his company’s CEO. These scams are often discovered way too late, only after the CFO casually says to a CEO that they transferred the $ 500,000 the CEO requested, only to see the look of panic on the CEO’s face.

What You Should Do - Before it is too late

Individuals: Beware of every e-mail asking you to provide personal information, click on a link, transfer money, or send sensitive information. Call or meet face-to-face with the person requesting the information, to ensure it is legitimate.

Employers: Use a phishing training vendor to train your employees to recognize and report phishing and spear-phishing attempts. Use spam filters to block messages from known hackers. Implement policies to slow down the transfer of sensitive data, by requiring a phone or in-person verification any time someone in your organization receives a request for sensitive data, or a money transfer. While inconvenient, a delay is much better than discovering the request was fraudulent.

STEALING DATA - US NAVY SECRETS, and a SUSPENDED NURSING LICENSE

A former employee of a US Navy contractor was found guilty in federal court of stealing secret information simply by using a company computer to create a personal DropBox account, and transferring thousands of company documents. Jared Dylan Sparks is awaiting sentencing on six convictions that can each bring 10 years in federal prison, after he stole trade secrets from his current employer while seeking employment at another company.

In another case, the New York State Department of Health suspended a FORMER nurse after she took 3,000 patient records from a previous employer to her new job.

According to healthitsecurity.com, “the list included the patients’ names, addresses, dates of birth, and diagnoses. Martha Smith-Lightfoot asked for the list to ensure continuity of care for the patients. However, she did not receive the permission of URMC or the patients to give the information to her new employer.”

Smith-Lightfoot agreed to a one-year suspension, one year stayed suspension, and three years’ probation. She can’t work as a nurse for a year. What do you think her career chances will be, after her suspension, any time someone verifies her license status and sees why she was suspended?

What You Should Do - Before it is Too Late.

Individuals: Understand the requirements of your license or certification, and the laws that protect data. Licensing requirements for privacy and confidentiality pre-date HIPAA. While your organization may face a HIPAA penalty, you may face a damaged or destroyed career, as well as jail time.

Employers: Educate your workforce (EVERYONE, including employees, volunteers, contractors, vendors, etc.) about keeping patient, employment, and sensitive business information secure and confidential. Have everyone sign confidentiality agreements. You must be willing to evenly enforce your policies. Terminating a long-term employee when they break your rules may seem harsh, but necessary if you want to avoid corporate theft, compliance violations, and wrongful termination lawsuits if you fire someone after letting another person get away with a policy violation.

We have worked with clients whose current and workforce members used cloud-sharing services, like DropBox, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive. When we discovered that these tools were installed on their network, many times it was too late. Data was already out the door, and no one knew what was taken. Implement Data Loss Prevention (DLP) security software that will automatically block critical data from being transferred to e-mail, cloud services, or portable thumb drives. Those that need to move data can be exempt from blocking, but you should protect your organization against everyone else.

People get hurt by data theft and violating regulations. Protect yourself, your patients, and your organization.