John Leyden reports: Security researchers have uncovered a seven year-long malware campaign against Latin America. Citizen Lab found that journalists, activists, politicians, and public figures in Argentina, Ecuador, Brazil and Venezuela have been targeted by a large-scale hacking campaign since 2008. The campaign, dubbed Packrat, uses bogus websites and social media accounts for fake opposition groups…
Month: December 2015
Spy Banker Trojan Being Hosted On Google Cloud
Sara Peters reports: The Spy Banker Trojan is spreading through Brazil through the help of Google and Facebook, according to researchers at ZScaler ThreatLabZ. Attackers host the Spy Banker downloader on Google Cloud servers. The downloader, in turn, installs the payload Spy Banker Trojan Telax. Victims are infected by drive-by download or led to it via…
Small-Scale Violations of Medical Privacy Often Cause the Most Harm
Note: the following article was reported by Charles Ornstein of ProPublica, Dec. 10, 2015, 5 a.m. and is reproduced under Creative Commons license. Although Ornstein did not mention it in his reporting, the case of Tami Matteson was previously covered on this site in 2013 in a post entitled ” ‘Small’ breach, big harm.” In that article,…
Former U.S. State Department Employee Pleads Guilty to Extensive Computer Hacking, Cyberstalking and “Sextortion” Scheme
A former U.S. State Department employee pleaded guilty today to perpetrating a widespread, international e-mail phishing, computer hacking and cyberstalking scheme against hundreds of victims in the United States and abroad. Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney John A. Horn of the Northern District of Georgia, Director…
Ca: Alberta Health department flouts privacy law, watchdog finds
Matt McClure reports: Alberta Health is flouting the law by failing to provide the required oversight to prevent snooping and privacy breaches involving electronic health records, says the province’s privacy watchdog. The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner released an investigation report Wednesday that found a legally-mandated committee charged with overseeing stewardship of data made…
Scared, dead, relieved: How the Ashley Madison hack changed its victims’ lives
Breaches have consequences. And Avid Life Media still has not provided any update as to how that horrific breach occurred. Nor did they respond to my email inquiry this week requesting an update.