Industrial supply company W.W. Grainger has issued a password reset after discovering a coding error in their mobile app that put usernames and passwords at risk. Nicely done: At Grainger, we take data privacy and security very seriously. As part of a system review, Grainger’s IT team recently identified a coding error in the Grainger.com mobile apps…
Month: November 2015
Starwood Hotels & Resorts reports payment card information breach at 54 properties
Austen Hufford reports: A data breach at Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. exposed payment card information for some of its North American hotels, the latest cybersecurity incident to sting a U.S. company. Read more on WSJ. A list of the 54 properties affected and the dates of compromise are provided here (pdf). In some…
FTC v. LabMD: A bad case and a questionable decision, but the right outcome
As I reported last Friday, FTC’s Administrative Law Judge D. Michael Chappell dismissed FTC’s enforcement action against LabMD, explaining that the regulator failed to meet the injury prong of the unfairness test under the FTC Act. The FTC issued a press release about the decision yesterday. The decision was noteworthy for two reasons. It was the first data security enforcement…
UK: IFA pulls clients from Ascentric after ‘terrible’ data breach
Charles Walmsley reports: Sussex-based Prosperity IFA director Simon Munday is set to pull his clients from the Ascentric platform after a technology error allowed one of his clients to access another adviser’s client portfolios. Munday (pictured) has 129 clients with around £10 million of assets under advice on the platform but will move them onto other…
Feds round up 50 suspects in latest ID theft-tax fraud sweep in South Florida
Jay Weaver reports: Federal agents arrested about 50 people on identity theft and tax fraud charges across South Florida over the past week, including a couple of suspects accused of breaking into an Internal Revenue Service database to steal supposedly secret information from taxpayers and file fraudulent refund claims in their names. Read more on Miami…
GA: IT staffer fired in data breach affecting 6 million Georgia voters
Kristina Torres reports: Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp will issue an alert this afternoon formally notifying more than 6 million Georgia voters that their personal information, including Social Security numbers and birth dates, were illegally released last month by his office. The decision to send the notification comes two days after his office was alerted…