Erik Larson reports: A Latvian hacker pleaded guilty in New York to helping develop a virus that infected more than a million computers worldwide, tricking online banking customers into revealing passwords and other security information. Deniss Calovskis, 30, faces as long as two years in prison under a plea deal reached with U.S. prosecutors after being extradited…
Month: September 2015
How Encryption Can Help Protect Your Personal Information
Commissioner Terrell McSweeny of the FTC writes: High profile car hacks, large-scale breaches of intimate information, news of compromised household appliances — hardly a day passes without some revelation of the ways in which our increasing interconnectedness is introducing new vulnerabilities into our lives. Technology is advancing at a rapid clip, and so are breaches….
FTC gives Feds the finger over backdoor encryption demands
Kevin McCarthy reports: The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has fired a second shot at the Feds over its demand for backdoors in encryption systems. Following a blog post last month by the regulator’s CTO in which he outlined why he was glad to have strong firmware encryption after his laptop was stolen, today FTC Commissioner Terrell…
IE: Permanent TSB confirms data breach of 100 customer details
RTÉ News reports: Permanent TSB has confirmed it has reported a data breach to the Data Protection Commissioner. The bank said the breach involved account information relating to less than 100 customers being mistakenly emailed to an unrelated customer. It is also believed that notes of meetings customers had with bank staff were also included….
Hacker Allegedly Behind One of Most Destructive Viruses in History Due in Court
Aaron Katersky and Alyssa Newcomb report: One of the alleged masterminds behind what has been called “one of the most financially destructive computer viruses in history” is expected to appear this afternoon in a New York federal courtroom. Deniss Calovskis, a Latvian national, was arrested in November 2012 for his alleged role in writing some of…
Mozilla says hacker compromised Bugzilla and used stolen ‘security-sensitive’ info to attack Firefox users
Emil Protalinsky reports: Mozilla today detailed a security attack on its bugtracker and testing tool Bugzilla, and the steps it is taking to mitigate a repeat incident. In short, a hacker compromised the service, stole security-sensitive information, and used it to attack Firefox users. Bugzilla is open-source software that has been adopted by a variety of organizations in…