Healthcare Cybersecurity

October 2025 Healthcare Data Breach Report

A delayed October 2025 healthcare data breach report due to the government shutdown for the whole of the month, which caused a significant delay at the HHS’ Office for Civil Rights, which failed to upload any data breach reports in October.  The shutdown ended on November 12, 2025, and the HHS had a considerable backlog of data breaches to add to the data breach portal. When a data breach report is received, OCR verifies the data, a process that may take up to around two weeks, before it is added to the OCR breach portal. Data breaches continued to be added for October well into December.

healthcare data breaches in the past 12 months - October 2025

Based on data obtained from OCR on December 31, 2025, OCR received 28 reports of data breaches affecting 500 or more individuals in October – the lowest monthly total of the year, the lowest total since the 28 reported data breaches in May 2020, and a 31.7% month-over-month reduction in large healthcare data breaches.

October healthcare data breaches 2020-2025

While there has been a downward trend in data breaches, the October total is suspiciously low, which could indicate the backlog of data breach reports has yet to be cleared. The totals will be better reflected in our 2025 healthcare data breach report, due for publication in late January, and our healthcare data breach statistics page.

Individuals affected by healthcare data breaches in the past 12 months - october 2025

While breach numbers are down, the number of affected individuals increased by 540% month-over month to 11,062,868 individuals – the second-highest monthly total of the year. That total is certain to increase well past April’s total, as the largest data breach of the month is still under investigation and the number of affected individuals has yet to be confirmed.

Individuals affected by October 2025 healthcare data breaches

The Largest Healthcare Data Breaches Reported in October 2025

In October, 7 healthcare data breaches were reported that affected more than 10,000 individuals, all of which were network server hacking incidents. The largest data breach of the month occurred at the business associate Conduent Business Services, a provider of back-office services to healthcare providers, health plans, and government agencies. Conduent’s client list includes major U.S. health insurers such as Humana and Premera Blue Cross.

Conduent experienced a hacking incident in May 2025, and while not stated as a ransomware attack, the SafePay ransomware group claimed responsibility. On its data leak site, SafePay claimed to have stolen 8.5 terabytes of data. Conduent notified the HHS’ Office for Civil Rights that 42,616 individuals had been affected; however, a few months later, the Oregon Attorney General was informed that more than 10.5 million individuals were affected nationwide.

Since the data for this report were compiled, there has been a further breach report from Conduent. The Texas Attorney General has been informed that the Conduent data breach affected almost 14.8 million individuals in Texas alone.

Name of Covered Entity State Covered Entity Type Individuals Affected Cause of Breach
Conduent Business Services LLC NJ Business Associate 10,515,849* Ransomware attack (Safepay)
Tri Century Eye Care PC PA Healthcare Provider 200,000 Hacking incident – Data theft confirmed
Central Jersey Medical Center NJ Healthcare Provider 88,000 Ransomware attack (Sinobi ransomware group)
Sierra Vista Hospital & Clinics NM Healthcare Provider 75,054 Hacking incident
Bosch Choice Welfare Benefit Plan MI Health Plan 55,000 Hacking incident
Heartland Health Center NE Healthcare Provider 43,728 Hacking incident
Revere Health, PC UT Healthcare Provider 10,800 Hacking incident of a third-party payment system

The HIPAA Breach Notification Rule requires data breaches to be reported to OCR within 60 days of the discovery of a data breach. If the total number of affected individuals is not known, an estimate should be provided. HIPAA-regulated entities often submit a breach report using a placeholder figure of 500 or 501 affected individuals when the data review is ongoing. In October, two data breaches were reported with suspected 501 placeholder totals.

Name of Covered Entity State Covered Entity Type Individuals Affected Cause of Breach
Saint Mary’s Home of Erie PA Healthcare Provider 501 Hacking incident
North Atlantic States Carpenters Health Benefits Fund MA Health Plan 501 Hacking incident

Causes of December 2024 Healthcare Data Breaches

As is usually the case, hacking and other IT incidents dominated the breach reports in October, accounting for 21 (75%) of the month’s data breaches and 99.8% of the affected individuals. Across the 21 data breaches, 11,037,882 individuals had their protected health information exposed or stolen. The average breach size was 525,613 individuals, and the median breach size was 6,633 individuals.

Causes of October 2025 healthcare data breaches

The next most common category of data breaches was unauthorized access/disclosure incidents. There were 7 of these incidents in October, affecting 24,986 individuals. The average breach size was 3,569 individuals, and the median breach size was 3,177 individuals.

While loss and theft incidents were among the most common types of data breaches when OCR first started publishing healthcare data breach data in 2009, along with improper disposal incidents, they are relatively rare. No loss, theft, or improper disposal incidents were reported in October. The most common location of breached protected health information in October was network servers, with email the second most common location of breached PHI.

Location of breached PHI - october 2025

Where did the Data Breaches Occur?

Healthcare providers reported 20 data breaches in October (472,481 affected individuals), 4 data breaches were reported by health plans (60,358 affected individuals), and four data breaches were reported by business associates of HIPAA-covered entities (10,530,029 affected individuals)

When a data breach occurs at a HIPAA business associate, the business associate must report the data breach to each affected covered entity, and the covered entity must decide who should send out individual notifications and notify OCR and the media. Some covered entities choose to report business associate breaches to OCR and issue their own notifications, while others delegate that responsibility to the business associate. If a business associate works with multiple covered entities, some of their covered entity clients may report the breach, while others delegate the responsibility to the business associate.

The consequence of that is that business associate data breaches are often underrepresented in many healthcare data breach reports. The HIPAA Journal calculates where the breach occurred rather than the entity that reported the breach to ensure business associate data breaches are reported accurately. As you can see from the pie chart below, while 4 data breaches were reported by business associates, 9 of the month’s data breaches occurred at business associates.

data breaches at HIPAA-regulated entities - october 2025

October 2025 healthcare data breaches - individuals affected by hipaa-regulated entity

Geographic Distribution of Healthcare Data Breaches

HIPAA-regulated entities in 18 U.S. states reported data breaches in October. Florida and Texas were the worst-affected states in October, with three large healthcare data breaches reported by entities headquartered in each of those states.

States Breaches
Florida & Texas 3
Alaska, Arizona, California, Illinois, New Jersey & Pennsylvania 2
Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma & Utah 1

While Florida and Texas had the highest number of data breaches, each affected a relatively low number of individuals. Unsurprisingly, given the scale of the data breach at Conduent Business Services, New Jersey was the worst-affected state, although that total includes individuals across the United States.

State Individuals Affected
New Jersey 10,603,849
Pennsylvania 200,501
New Mexico 75,054
Michigan 55,000
Nebraska 43,728
Texas 14,233
Utah 10,800
California 9,700
Kentucky 9,536
Illinois 9,405
Florida 8,503
Oklahoma 6,633
Montana 5,617
Arizona 4,177
Alaska 2,641
Missouri 1,680
Ohio 1,310
Massachusetts 501

HIPAA Enforcement Activity in October 2025

The government shutdown for the entire month of October meant all but the most critical workflows ground to a halt at the Department of Health and Human Services. As such, there were no announcements about HIPAA settlements and civil monetary penalties, and no penalties were announced by state attorneys general in October.

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High Severity Vulnerabilities Patched in Mirion Medical EC2 Software NMIS BioDose

Mirion Medical has issued patches to fix five high-severity vulnerabilities in its EC2 Software NMIS BioDose software. Successful exploitation of the vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to gain unauthorized access to the application, modify program executables, access sensitive information, and potentially remotely execute code.

Mirion Medical EC2 Software NMIS BioDose is tracking software used by healthcare providers to keep track of inventory, doses, patient information, and billing. The vulnerabilities affect software versions prior to v23.0. Users have been urged to update to v23.0 or later versions to prevent the vulnerabilities from being exploited. Users with an active support contract can update to the latest version via the software. At the time of issuing the updated version, there had been no known exploitation of the vulnerabilities in the wild.

CVE-2025-64298 – CVSS v3.1: 8.4 | CVSS v4: 8.6

NMIS/BioDose V22.02 and previous version installations where the embedded Microsoft SQL Server Express is used are exposed in the Windows share accessed by clients in networked installs. The directory has insecure directory paths by default, allowing access to the SQL Server database and configurations, which may contain sensitive data.

CVE-2025-61940 – CVSS v3.1: 8.3 | CVSS v4: 8.7

NMIS/BioDose V22.02 and previous versions rely on a common SQL Server user account to access data in the database, and while users must supply a password in the client software, the underlying database connection always has access. An option has been added to use Windows user authentication with the database to restrict the database connection.

CVE-2025-62575 – CVSS v3.1: 8.3 | CVSS v4: 8.7

NMIS/BioDose V22.02 and previous versions rely on a Microsoft SQL Server database. The SQL user account – nmdbuser – and other created accounts have the sysadmin role, which could lead to remote code execution through the use of certain built-in stored procedures.

CVE-2025-64642 – CVSS v3.1: 8.0 | CVSS v4: 7.1

In NMIS/BioDose V22.02 and previous versions, installation directory paths have insecure file permissions by default. In certain deployments, this can allow users to modify program executables and libraries.

CVE-2025-64778 – CVSS v3.1: 7.3 | CVSS v4: 8.4

NMIS/BioDose software V22.02 and previous versions have executable binaries with plaintext hard-coded passwords, which could be exploited to gain unauthorized access to the application and database.

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Europol Takes Down Illegal Crypto Mixing Laundering Service Used by Ransomware Actors

A cryptocurrency mixing service used by criminals to launder the proceeds from their illegal activities has been shut down by Europol, Eurojust, and law enforcement agencies in Switzerland and Germany.

Cybercriminals, such as ransomware actors, typically receive payment for their attacks in cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency transactions are not anonymous, as all transactions are recorded on the public blockchain and can be traced to the wallets receiving the funds. That means the proceeds from cybercrime can be traced to individuals if the wallet address is linked to a real-world identity. Cybercriminals use cryptocurrency mixing services to launder the proceeds from their attacks, then redirect their anonymized funds to cryptocurrency exchanges to cash out.

The law enforcement operation was a week-long effort – Operation Olympia – between November 24 and November 26, targeting Cryptomixer, an illegal cryptocurrency mixing service that law enforcement agencies have been trying to shut down since its creation in 2016. According to Europol, Cryptomixer was the mixing service of choice for cybercriminals, and was used by ransomware gangs, payment card fraudsters, drug and weapons traffickers, and nation state hackers such as North Korea’s Lazarus Group to launder funds from their illegal activities. Since 2016, more than €1.3 billion in Bitcoin ($1.5 billion) has passed through Cryptomixer infrastructure.

Funds were deposited in the mixing service, pooled for a long and randomized period, then redistributed to destination addresses at random times. Mixing services such as Cryptomixer make pseudonymous cryptocurrency transactions anonymous, concealing the origin of cryptocurrency by making it difficult to trace specific coins, allowing cybercriminals to launder funds from their activities without the risk of being identified. More than €25 million ($28 million) in Bitcoin was confiscated, three servers in Switzerland and the cryptomixer.io clear web domain were seized, along with more than 12 terabytes of data.

The operation was part of a broader international effort by law enforcement agencies to tackle cybercrime by targeting the services that cybercriminals use to hide their financial transactions. Operation Olympia mirrors a similar effort in 2023 by Europol and law enforcement agencies in the United States and Germany that resulted in the seizure of the infrastructure behind the ChipMixer mixing service, which at the time was the go-to mixing service for cybercriminals, through which more than $3 billion in cryptocurrency had passed. In that operation, as well as seizing the infrastructure, more than $50 billion in Bitcoin was confiscated.

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Editorial: Cryptocurrencies’ Central Role in Healthcare Ransomware Attacks

One of the benefits of cryptocurrencies is greater financial accessibility for unbanked populations, which includes individuals in remote areas who do not have access to banking infrastructure, but also cybercriminals, who cannot directly put the proceeds from their illegal activities directly through banks, at least not without raising red flags about the source of those funds.

Cryptocurrencies have been a godsend for cybercriminals and have played a central role in the massive rise in cybercriminal activity over the past decade, fueling the current ransomware epidemic. The first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, was invented in 2008 and launched in 2009, and rapidly became a major currency in black market activities, including the first modern dark net market, the Silk Road, which exclusively adopted Bitcoin as payment in 2011.

A brief history of ransomware

While the earliest form of ransomware, widely thought to be the AIDS Trojan, was first distributed in 1989, the modern ransomware phenomenon started with CryptoLocker, a particularly successful ransomware variant that first appeared in 2013. Cryptolocker used strong, industry-standard encryption, requiring a decryption key to recover data. The Cryptolocker campaign was relatively short-lived, running from September 2013 until May 2014, when the command-and-control infrastructure was seized by law enforcement. During that short period of activity, the ransomware generated millions of dollars in ransom payments.

Businesses could recover from Cryptolocker ransomware attacks without paying the ransom, provided they had an effective backup strategy and had a valid backup of their data stored securely offline; however, tactics changed in late 2019, when the Maze ransomware group combined data theft with encryption. Data could still be recovered from backups, but if the ransom was not paid, the stolen data would be leaked online or sold. This double extortion tactic proved highly effective and has since been adopted by most major ransomware players.

The Cryptolocker campaign in 2013/2014 saw ransom demands issued of 10 Bitcoin, which at the time was worth around $2,000. Today, according to Sophos, the average ransom demand is around $1 million. According to Chainalysis, at least $813.55 million was paid to ransomware groups in 2024, and Verizon reports that 44% of cyberattacks involved ransomware in 2024, compared to 10% of attacks in 2021.

The ransomware remediation firm Coveware reports that in Q1, 2018, 85% of victims of ransomware attacks paid the ransom to recover their files and prevent the release of stolen data. The percentage of victims paying the ransom has been steadily falling, dropping to 23% in Q3, 2025. Despite this drop off, ransomware remains a major threat, with attacks increasing in 2025.

A cybercrime epidemic fueled by cryptocurrencies

The ransomware epidemic would not have been possible without cryptocurrencies. Prior to Bitcoin, extortion of companies through hacking, ransomware, and data theft was relatively unheard of; however, cryptocurrencies have allowed cybercriminals to easily profit from their activities with relatively little risk.

Security and transparency are often touted as key benefits of cryptocurrencies. All cryptocurrency transactions are recorded on a public, distributed ledger (blockchain), secured with advanced cryptography. While each transaction is recorded and publicly available, cryptocurrencies provide a high degree of anonymity for cybercriminals.

Cryptocurrencies do not provide full anonymity, as most public blockchains use public keys or wallet addresses as identification; however, it is difficult to link a wallet address to a real-world identity. Further, cybercriminals use mixing services that make it difficult to track the origins of funds, as well as privacy coins that encrypt transactions and make tracing funds more problematic.

In addition to giving cybercriminals an easy way to profit from their attacks, cryptocurrencies have helped cybercriminal groups sell their products and services. Cybercriminals develop malware and ransomware and offer it as a paid service along with the infrastructure that supports it, all paid for in relatively anonymous cryptocurrency.  Ransomware-as-a-service groups provide the encryptor and tools to allow their affiliates to conduct attacks for a percentage of the profits, naturally paid in cryptocurrency.

While cryptocurrency has helped to create the current ransomware epidemic and benefits cybercriminals greatly, it is not cryptocurrencies that are the problem. There are important benefits to cryptocurrencies. They are free from government interference and are managed by a distributed network of users, making them resilient to any single point of failure. There is global accessibility, and the limited supply helps to protect against inflation, compared to traditional currencies. These and other benefits mean cryptocurrencies are here to stay and will likely become ubiquitous.

Governments and law enforcement are grappling with how to disrupt cybercriminals’ business model to make attacks less profitable, and organizations must ensure that they have the defenses in place to prevent, detect, and quickly recover from attacks. That means better cybersecurity infrastructure and training for staff, and well-tested incident response plans to ensure recovery in the fastest possible time frame.

Improving defenses against ransomware attacks

The increase in both the volume and sophistication of ransomware attacks is forcing companies to invest more in cybersecurity. According to Gartner, spending on cybersecurity is expected to rise to $207 billion in 2025, up from $165 billion last year, to deal with the increased threat.

In many industries, especially healthcare, there has been a massive expansion of the attack surface, with increasing numbers of portable electronic devices connecting to networks, and rapidly growing numbers of IoT and IoMT devices, often coupled with incomplete and out-of-date inventories. Devices are connected to networks that are not supplied with a software bill of materials (SBOM) that lists all third-party components, and increasing numbers of vulnerabilities are being discovered, growing the patching burden considerably.

Cybercriminals have embraced artificial intelligence tools and are using AI to accelerate malware development and improve the effectiveness of their social engineering and phishing campaigns. With cybercriminals’ use of AI tools outpacing defensive use at many healthcare organizations, this is an area where investment needs to increase.

According to the IBM Cost of a Data Breach report, organizations with many defense tools that have AI capabilities are able to identify a breach 30% faster than organizations that do not, potentially allowing ransomware attacks to be thwarted before data theft and encryption, or at least in time to limit the impact of an attack.

Prompt patching is important to decrease the window of opportunity for exploitation; however, organizations must maintain an accurate and up-to-date asset inventory; otherwise, devices are likely to be missed from patching schedules. Regular risk analyses must be conducted to identify risks and vulnerabilities to ePHI, and these also need to be based on an accurate and up-to-date asset inventory.

For small and medium-sized healthcare organizations with limited budgets for cybersecurity, every dollar needs to be spent wisely. To get the best returns for each dollar spent, the HHS cybersecurity performance goals (HPH CPGs) are a good place to start. The CPGs include high-impact measures proven to be effective at decreasing risk, strengthening cybersecurity against the most common access vectors.

It is also important not to neglect cybersecurity awareness training. Many attacks target employees, the weakest link in the cybersecurity chain. While turning every employee into a cybersecurity titan may be a lofty goal, employees should be made aware of the threats that they are likely to encounter and be taught cybersecurity best practices to minimize risk.

Even with the most robust cybersecurity defenses, it is impossible to completely eradicate risk. A mistake by an employee, a missed patch, or a zero-day vulnerability could easily lead to a successful attack. It is vital to prepare for such an attack and have an incident response plan to ensure business continuity and a fast recovery. Plans for different types of attacks should be developed and tested with tabletop exercises to ensure that everyone is aware of their responsibilities and the plans are effective.

Steve Alder, Editor-in-Chief, The HIPAA Journal

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Threat Actors Time Attacks to Coincide with Periods of Reduced Vigilance

Thanksgiving weekend is just a few days away, and while many healthcare employees will be enjoying time off work, it will be a particularly busy time for cybercriminals. Many hacking and ransomware attacks occur over Thanksgiving weekend when staffing levels are lower, and fewer eyes are monitoring for indicators of compromise.

The high level of ransomware attacks during holiday periods has recently been confirmed by the cybersecurity firm Semperis, which reports that in the United States, 56% of ransomware attacks occur on a weekend or holiday, and 47% of ransomware attacks on healthcare organizations occur during these times when staffing levels are reduced.

“Threat actors continue to take advantage of reduced cybersecurity staffing on holidays and weekends to launch ransomware attacks. Vigilance during these times is more critical than ever because the persistence and patience attackers have can lead to long-lasting business disruptions,” said Chris Inglis, the first U.S. National Cyber Director and Semperis Strategic Advisor.

The Semperis 2025 Ransomware Holiday Risk Report is based on an analysis of responses to a detailed global ransomware survey of 1,500 IT and security professionals conducted in the first half of the year by Censuswide. The survey suggests that ransomware groups research their targets and time their attacks to coincide with material corporate events such as mergers, acquisitions, IPOs, and layoffs, and exploit the organizational disruption and reduced security focus during these events. “Organizations are under intense pressure to sustain operations while transforming their form and protocols during an IPO or merger, and cannot afford downtime, making them more likely to pay quickly to restore operations,” said Inglis. “During these times, it is critical to remain vigilant and situationally aware that bad actors may be lurking, looking to plant ransomware.”

In healthcare, 96% of organizations maintain a security operations center, with 80% managing it in-house and 20% outsourcing to a third-party vendor. During weekends and holiday periods, 73% of healthcare organizations reduce their SOC staffing levels by 50% or more, and 5% of organizations said they eliminate their SOC staffing entirely on weekends and holidays. The main reasons given for reducing or eliminating staffing levels were to improve work/life balance (63%), because the organization was closed during holidays and weekends (43%), and 36% of respondents said they did not expect an attack to take place.

Smaller organizations were the most likely to cut or eliminate SOC staffing levels on weekends and during holiday periods because they thought they would be unlikely to be attacked. While reducing staffing levels to give employees weekends and holidays off is all well and good, there is no time off for hackers. If internal staffing levels are to be reduced, there must be adequate monitoring, staff on call, or a third-party vendor providing cover.

There has been a marked increase in organizations bringing their SOC in-house, which is up 28 percentage points from last year, which has coincided with a 30% percentage point increase in below 50% staffing levels during holidays and weekends to maintain a better work/life balance. The reason for the shift in bringing SOCs in-house was not explored in the study, but there could be several factors at play.

“Being able to see what’s happening might enable organizations to pivot and adapt faster based on changing operations, business needs, and regulatory reporting requirements,” Courtney Guss, Semperis Director of Crisis Management, said. “The ROI of outsourcing also seems to be shifting as AI begins to handle some Tier 1 work, leaving the more complex work for SOC analysts.”

The survey also probed respondents on their identity infrastructure and the methods used for protection. The majority (90%) scan for vulnerabilities, although only 38% have vulnerability remediation procedures, and only 63% automate recovery. Concerningly, 10% of respondents said they do not have an identity threat detection and response strategy.

One of the most effective ways to defend against ransomware attacks is by tightening identity systems, most commonly Active Directory, Entra ID, and Okta,” former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said. “These are the digital keys that determine who can access what within an organization. In nearly every major ransomware incident, weak or compromised credentials have been the initial entry point. Strengthening identity systems is therefore not just good practice but a critical line of defense.

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HSCC Updates Model Contract Language Framework for HDOs & MDMs

The Health Sector Coordinating Council (HSCC) has published updated Model Contract Language for MedTech Cybersecurity to help healthcare delivery organizations (HDOs) and medical device manufacturers (MDMs) address the challenge of ensuring the cybersecurity of medical devices.

Medical devices can introduce cybersecurity risks that must be managed and reduced to a reasonable and appropriate level to comply with the HIPAA Security Rule. The devices must also meet the safety and effectiveness requirements of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which include cybersecurity for the entire life cycle of the devices.

The cybersecurity of medical devices is a shared responsibility between the HDO and the MDM; however, historically, cybersecurity accountability has been inconsistently reconciled in the purchase contract negotiation process due to factors such as uneven MDM capabilities and investment in cybersecurity controls, and varying cybersecurity expectations among HDOs.

If there are ambiguities in cybersecurity responsibilities due to the contract language – or a failure to clearly state in contracts the responsibilities of each party with respect to cybersecurity – it is likely to result in downstream disputes, insufficient security, and potential patient safety issues.

“In today’s partnership between HDOs and MDMs, cybersecurity requirements are often unclear, resulting in a lack of understanding and prioritization of cybersecurity best practices. For HDOs and MDMs alike, this leads to an investment in security controls that are not always aligned between stakeholders,” explained HSCC.

The HSCC Cybersecurity Working Group (CWG) formed the Model Contract Language Task Group in 2020 to help address these issues. The Working Group consists of 50 representatives from HDOs, MDMs, group purchasing organizations, and security and compliance specialists. After two years of deliberations, the Task Group published the first version of the Model Contract Language in 2022, which serves as a neutral framework for the contractual cybersecurity relationships between HDOs and MDMs.

The aim of the Model Contract Language is to help HDOs protect themselves and their patients from cybersecurity threats by establishing and maintaining appropriate security contract terms and commitments from MDMs concerning their products, services, and solutions. Version 1 has been downloaded more than 1,500 times from the HSCC CWG website since its publication.

In 18 months after publication, users submitted almost 100 comments to HSCC. The Task Group reconvened last year to review the feedback and has now incorporated many of the recommendations in Version 2, which it is hoped will simplify the contracting process, making it more predictable and less costly and time-consuming.

The main improvements made in Version 2 are revisions and expansions to align with the changed regulatory environment; updates to reflect increasing security maturity and better alignment with expectations between stakeholders; resolution of unclear separation in areas where terms describe shared responsibilities; and simplification of the language to improve clarity and structure to help speed up contract negotiations.

HSCC says the Model Contract Language can be used as a standalone agreement with an MDM, or as an addendum to a Business Associate Agreement (BAA), Master Service Agreement (MSA), or Request for Proposal (RFP). The document can serve as a template that can be tailored to meet the specific compliance needs of each HDO.

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Critical Flaw in Oracle Identity Manager Under Active Exploitation

A critical vulnerability in Oracle Identity Manager is under active exploitation, according to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). CISA has instructed all federal civilian executive branch agencies to ensure the vulnerability is patched by December 12, 2025, and strongly recommends that all users apply the available patches as soon as possible.

The remote code execution vulnerability can be easily exploited by an unauthenticated remote attacker via HTTP.  Successful exploitation would allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on vulnerable systems, leading to a full takeover of Oracle Identity Manager. The vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2025-61757 and has a CVSS severity score of 9.8 out of 10.  The vulnerability is due to missing authentication for a critical function in the REST WebServices component of Oracle Fusion Middleware. The vulnerability can be exploited to trick a security filter into treating protected endpoints as publicly accessible, allowing access to a script that can be abused to run malicious code.

The vulnerability was identified by Searchlight Cyber researchers Adam Kues and Shubham Shahflow, who reported the vulnerability to Oracle. The researchers identified the flaw while investigating a security incident that exploited an older vulnerability, CVE-2021-35587. The researchers report that, in contrast to some of the previously identified vulnerabilities in Oracle Access Manager, this flaw is somewhat trivial and is easily exploitable by threat actors.

The vulnerability affects the supported versions 12.2.1.4.0 and 14.1.2.1.0. Oracle released patches to fix the vulnerability in its batch of October 2025 security updates. Any users who have yet to download and install the patches should do so immediately to prevent exploitation, as the researchers have now released all the necessary information to exploit the flaw.

While it is unclear how widely the vulnerability is being exploited, it is likely to be a prime target for ransomware groups. Some evidence has been found to suggest that the flaw has been exploited since August 30, 2025, potentially by an advanced persistent threat actor.

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Critical Vulnerability Identified in Emerson Appleton UPSMON-PRO

A critical vulnerability has been identified in Emerson Appleton UPSMON-PRO, monitoring and power management software for uninterruptible power supplies. The software is used by healthcare and public health sector organizations to ensure power is maintained for essential equipment.

The vulnerability was identified by security researcher Kimiya, working with the Trend Micro Zero Day Initiative, who reported the issue to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). The stack-based buffer overflow vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2024-3871 and has been assigned a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.3 (CVSS v4 9.8). The vulnerability can be exploited by sending a specially crafted UDP packet to the default UDP port 2601, which can cause an overflow of the buffer stack, overwriting critical memory locations.

Successful exploitation of the vulnerability could allow an unauthorized individual to execute arbitrary code with SYSTEM privileges if the UPSMONProService service communication is not properly validated.

The vulnerability affects Appleton UPSMON-PRO versions 2.6 and earlier. Emerson has warned that the affected versions have reached end-of-life, so patches are not being released to fix the vulnerability. Any user who has yet to replace the affected UPSMON-PRO version with an actively supported UPS monitoring solution should do so as soon as possible.

While there is no patch, there are recommended mitigations to reduce the potential for exploitation. Users should block UDP port 2601 at the firewall level for all UPSMON-PRO installations, UPS monitoring networks should be isolated from general corporate networks, network-level packet filtering should reject oversized UDP packets to port 2601, and UPSMON-ProSer.exe should be monitored for server crashes as potential indicators of exploitation attempts.

CISA recommends ensuring that Emerson Appleton UPSMON-PRO is not accessible from the Internet, and if remote access is required, to ensure that secure methods are used to connect remotely, such as virtual private networks running the most up-to-date software version.

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Compromised VPN Credentials Leading Attack Vector in Ransomware Campaigns

Several cybersecurity firms have tracked a surge in ransomware attacks in Q3, 2025, as groups such as Akira, Qilin, and Inc Ransom have stepped up their attacks. According to Beazley Security, a subsidiary of Beazley Insurance, those three groups accounted for 65% of all ransomware attacks in the quarter. Akira had a surge in attacks, conducting 39% of all attacks in the quarter, over 20% more than the second most active group, Qilin, with 18%, and Inc Ransom with 8%.

The Beazley Security Quarterly Threat Report for Q3, 2025, shows an 11% increase in additions to dark web data leak sites compared to Q2, 2025. The biggest increase in attacks came in August, which accounted for 26% of all publicly disclosed attacks in the past six months, with high levels of ransomware activity continuing in September, which accounted for 19% of all disclosed ransomware attacks in the previous six months.

While attacks are up overall, there has not been much change in the rate of attacks on the healthcare sector, which has remained fairly constant, accounting for 12% of attacks in Q2, 2025, and 11% of attacks in Q3, making it the 4th most targeted sector. In Q3, there was a significant increase in attacks targeting the business services sector, which accounted for 28% of attacks, up from 19% in Q2. Professional services & associations was the second most targeted sector, accounting for 18% of attacks in Q3.

Beazley identified some interesting attack trends, including the continuing preference for using compromised credentials for initial access, most commonly compromised credentials for publicly accessible VPN solutions. Compromised VPN credentials were the initial access vector in 48% of attacks in Q3, up from 38% in Q2, 2025, with external services the next most common attack vector, accounting for 23% of attacks.

Compromised credentials for remote desktop services took third spot, followed by supply chain attacks and social engineering, with each of those attack vectors accounting for around 6% of all attacks in the quarter. While the top three attack vectors remain the same as in Q2, 2025, there was an increase in exploits of vulnerabilities in external services, which overtook compromised credentials to take second spot. The supply of valid credentials primarily comes from infostealer campaigns, and while there was a significant law enforcement action – Operation ENDGAME – targeting Lumma Stealer infrastructure, there was a subsequent spike in Rhadamanthys information activity, indicating the strong demand for credentials.

Akira typically targets VPNs for initial access, and in Q3, most attacks involved credential stuffing and brute force attempts to guess weak passwords, demonstrating the importance of implementing and enforcing password policies and ensuring that multifactor authentication is used. Any accounts that cannot be protected by MFA should have compensating controls. Akira also targeted vulnerabilities in SonicWall devices, where organizations were slow to patch vulnerabilities.

Qilin likewise targeted VPNs using brute force tactics to exploit weak passwords, and also abused valid compromised credentials. INC Ransom also appears to favor compromised valid credentials, gaining access to victims’ environments via VPNs and remote desktop services.

While accounting for a relatively small number of attacks, Beazley warns that several attacks started with downloads of trojanized software installers, including popular productivity and administrative tools such as PDF editors.  Ransomware actors use SEO poisoning to get their malicious download sites appearing at the top of the search engine results, along with malicious adverts (malvertising) that direct users to malicious sites.

Executing the downloaded installer may install the desired software, but it also installs malware. This technique was a common initial access vector in Rhysida ransomware attacks that Beazley investigated. Beazley suggests that organizations should consider security tools such as web filters for protecting against these attack vectors, and should ensure that they cover these techniques in organizational security awareness training programs.

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