Ian Royall reports: Port Phillip Council has admitted a major privacy leak after exposing up to 700 ratepayers’ email addresses in a newsletter to residents about changes in Acland St in St Kilda. The data blunder was realised soon after the leak occurred last Friday but council only owned up five days later, notifying residents…
Month: September 2017
AXA data breach affects 5,400 Singapore customers
The personal data of 5,400 customers of AXA Insurance in Singapore has been stolen due to a cyber attack. The life insurance firm sent out an e-mail to affected customers on Thursday (Sept 7), notifying them of the data breach. In the e-mail, AXA’s data protection officer Eric Lelyon said: “We wish to inform you…
Hackers Can Use Ultrasounds to Take Control of Alexa, Siri, Cortana, Others
Catalin Cimpanu reports: Six scientists from Zhejiang University in China have discovered that they could use ultrasound frequencies — inaudible to human ears — to send commands to speech recognition software and take over devices such as smartphones, smart home assistants, or even cars. Researchers named their experiment DolphinAttack because the attack scenario was inspired…
UK: Trust employee prosecuted for snooping on colleagues’ records
A former data co-ordinator employed by The University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust has been prosecuted at North Staffordshire Magistrates’ Court. Linda Reeves accessed the sensitive medical records of colleagues as well as people she know that lived in her locality, without the consent of the data controller. Ms Reeves pleaded guilty to the…
Sg: Meridian Secondary School’s art competition site hacked
Kelly Ng reports: Hackers broke into a Meridian Secondary School website last month, prompting the school to make a police report. The Young Illustrator Award site, which hosted an online art competition open to primary and secondary school students, was hacked on August 30 and has been taken down, the school said in a media statement on…
Update on case involving VT workers’ information being phished
Mike Donoghue reports a follow-up to a January 2016 phishing incident previously noted on this site: Two Nigerians, indicted in Vermont on federal charges of conspiracy to file fraudulent tax returns, stole personal identification information from hundreds of Vermont state employees and other government workers, a prosecutor said Wednesday in U.S. District Court. Assistant U.S….