Radio New Zealand reports: The Privacy Commissioner is warning the storage of millions of New Zealand’s health records online puts them at risk of cyber attacks and snooping. John Edwards released a new report on three electronic shared care record systems, that said while they were appropriately mitigating privacy risks, continued attention to privacy was…
Month: September 2014
UK: Three Aberdeen council workers sacked for breaching data protection rules
David Ewen reports: Three Aberdeen council workers have been sacked for accessing private information about people, the Evening Express can reveal today. The former employees of Aberdeen City Council got their marching orders after breaching the Data Protection Act. A further nine members of staff were reprimanded for misconduct, which included leaking information from a…
TX: School district mistakenly turns over parents’ information to PAC
Rashi Vats reports that a political group obtained parents’ email addresses from Katy Independent School District in Texas – even though that information should not have been released. Anthony Kessel is a Katy ISD parent who wanted answers after receiving an email from a community-led group pushing the passage of a school bond in November….
Bash bug: Shell Shocked yet? You will be … when this goes WORM
Darren Pauli reports: Much of the impact of the Shell Shocked vulnerability is unknown and will surface in the coming months as researchers, admins and attackers (natch) find new avenues of exploitation. The vulnerability, coined Shell Shocked by researcher Robert Graham, existed in the Bash command interpreter up to version 4.3 and affected scores of servers,…
Pacific Biosciences of California notifying employees of breach
Pacific Biosciences of California is notifying employees and dependents after a laptop with personal information was stolen from an employee’s home. The theft occurred on September 16. In a letter to those affected, Natalie Welch, Senior Director of Human Resources, writes that the personal information involved included names, contact information, birthdates, Social Security numbers, direct…
Operation Harkonnen Malware disguised as ‘harmless Adware’
Michael Shuff reports: Further details are emerging today of the methods used in the massive and long-lasting Operation Harkonnen cyber attack (‘Harkonnen Hack’) methodology that has allegedly exposed the data of 300 leading European organisations since 2003. The victims of the German gang thought to be responsible include banks, government organisations and major corporations, most…