Greenbelt, Maryland – Three guardsmen from the District of Columbia Army National Guard were indicted on charges arising from a scheme to use Bitcoin to buy stolen credit and debit card numbers from foreign websites, re-encode cards issued in their names with those stolen numbers, and then fraudulently purchase items at Army and Air Force Exchange…
Month: May 2016
Former Excellon employee’s sentencing delayed in hacking case
Debbie Sklar reports: A sentencing hearing was delayed Monday until Aug. 22 for an Oceanside man who staged repeated attacks on a computer system operated by his former employer, a manufacturer of precision laser and mechanical drilling equipment. Prosecutors are recommending that Conrad Pearson be sentenced to 18 months in federal prison and ordered to pay…
El Paso Independent School District employee accounts hacked, money stolen
David Crowder reports: In mid-April, computer hackers had five days’ access to the personal data of a reported 51 El Paso Independent School District employees and were able to redirect their April 15 paychecks. That’s what the district has told the employees who were hacked, including longtime teacher Anne Stewart. EPISD made good on the…
NY: Leader behind hospital ID theft ring takes plea deal
Rebecca Rosenberg reports an update to a case first noted in June, 2015: The leader of an identity theft ring that used stolen patient records purchased from a crooked hospital employee to pull off shopping sprees at major Manhattan department stores took a plea deal Monday. Fernando Salazar, 28, admitted to buying the records of 250 Montefiore…
KE: Safaricom calls for police investigation into data leak
Telecompaper reports: Kenyan operator Safaricom wants the police to investigate how confidential financial documents belonging to the firm were leaked. CEO Bob Collymore said the leaked report was in its initial stages, noting that no individuals or organisations benefited inappropriately from the company. After allegations arose of underhand dealings in Safaricom, Collymore commissioned KPMG to…
Slovenian student convicted after finding encryption flaws in government network
Paul Ducklin reports: A student from the University of Maribor in Slovenia has ended up with a prison sentence after finding cryptographic flaws in the country’s implementation of its secure communications system, known as TETRA. TETRA is short for Terrestrial Trunked Radio, a radio communications protocol that is widely used around the world, notably by law enforcement and…