Nobody is safe from the latest round of data breaches plaguing American government offices, major corporations, and school districts. This week the NYC Department of Education along with the city of Fort Worth, Texas, were both targets of data breaches. Also, retired California educators and public servants were hit by a breach, making it clear that the US government is a key target for most hackers.
American Airlines and Southwest Airlines are both known for offering a long list of destinations throughout the United States and some other parts of the world. Two of America's largest airlines just suffered from a data breach that threatens to expose new pilots and cadets joining and hoping to join the airlines.
The NYC Department of Education manages all the public schools throughout the New York City metro area. More than 1.1 million students go to the managed schools, and the organization oversees all this activity while handling data for these students. The NYC Dept of Education was recently involved in a data breach connected with the MOVEit file transfer solution, and that data breach could have resulted in substantial data losses for faculty members and students in the districts.
Both CalPERS and CalSTRS are agencies that manage retirement funds and health benefits for retired California teachers, government employees, and more types of public service employees. These organizations handle a huge amount of personal and financial data for teachers and other individuals, and they even handle pensions for them. That's why it's so upsetting to learn that both CalPERS and CalSTRS were impacted by a recent data breach.
Fort Worth is the fifth largest city in the state of Texas and approximately the 12th largest in the United States. The city is home to over 900,000 people and maintains a staff of thousands of individuals. The state manages a substantial amount of data in its servers, including public and private information that could be harmful if taken and shared with people online. That's why we were worried when we noted the city was breached, and over 500,000 files were taken.
The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare is a government organization that offers free or low-cost services to Idaho citizens to provide for their health and well-being. This includes things like Medicaid, food programs, and more. The organization is a government agency that manages a huge amount of data for different people.
Healthcare services offered by the government and private agencies took a serious hit this week with breaches against Johns Hopkins, Essen Health Care, Atrium Health at Wake Forest, and the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. Patients lost a significant amount of both personal and health information in this breach as a result. The Bank of NY Mellon was also a breach victim this week. Read below for the details.
Atrium Health is a major health services provider for primary care and specialty care at Wake Forest in North Carolina. The service provides care to thousands of individuals and manages data for all those people. Some of that data was recently lost to a data breach that's left patients, doctors, and staff members uncertain and concerned. The breach occurred quickly and created some issues that anyone relying on Atrium Health should be aware of.
The Bank of NY Mellon is one of the largest financial institutions in the world and the largest custodian bank in the world. The company is based in 35 countries, manages $1.9 Trillion in assets, and generates more than $16 Billion in annual revenue. This mammoth bank just suffered from a data breach that exposed consumer data to the public. The data taken could result in identity theft issues and more. The Emerson Law Firm is currently investigating this data breach.
Essen Health Care is a massive healthcare network of facilities and providers throughout New York City, Staten Island, and Westchester County. With more than 300 providers at a range of facilities connected to Essen Health Care, the organization maintains and stores a huge amount of medical and personal data for patients, providers, faculty, and more. All this data is protected by security features, but it was exposed in a recent breach.
