David E. Sanger and Nicole Perlroth report: American officials have concluded that North Korea ordered the attacks on Sony Pictures’s computers, a determination reached as the studio decided Wednesday to cancel the release of a comedy movie about the assassination of Kim Jong-un that is believed to have led to the hacking. Senior administration officials, who would…
Month: December 2014
Banks Sue Kmart Over Credit Card Data Breach
Jack Bouboushian reports: Kmart’s failure to protect customer information with “elementary” security measures left banks liable for the resulting fraud, a federal class action claims. First NBC Bank filed the class action Tuesday against Kmart Corp. and parent company Sears Holding Corp, regarding an announcement that hackers had breached Kmart’s payment-data systems in early September….
ICANN hackers sniff around global DNS root zone system
Kieren McCarthy reports: Domain-name overseer ICANN has been hacked and its root zone administration system compromised, the organization has said. Attackers sent staff spoofed emails appearing to coming from icann.org. The organization notes it was a “spear phishing” attack, suggesting employees clicked on a link in the messages, and then typed their usernames and passwords…
The Evidence That North Korea Hacked Sony Is Flimsy (updated)
Kim Zetter reports: Today Sony canceled the premier of “The Interview” and its entire Christmas-Day release of the movie because of fears that terrorists might attack the theater showing the film. The actions show just how much power the attackers behind the Sony hack have amassed in a short time. But who exactly are the…
FL: Psychotherapy center notifies patients of stolen server
One of the breaches recently added to HHS’s public breach tool involved Multilingual Psychotherapy Centers, Inc.in Florida. PHIprivacy.net spoke with them about the incident and obtained a redacted copy of their notification letter to patients. According to their October 23rd letter and statements made to PHIprivacy.net, a server stolen during an office burglary contained 3,500 patients’ first and…
MD: Federal Jury Convicts Pharmacy Store Owner Of Health Care Fraud And Identity Theft
Another fraud case involving medical ID theft. December 15, 2014 – Baltimore, Maryland – A federal jury has convicted Reddy Vijay Annappareddy, age 46, of Fallston, Maryland, of health care fraud and aggravated identity theft in connection with a scheme to defraud Medicaid and Medicare by submitting false claims for prescription refills. Annappareddy owns Pharmacare, LLC…