AP reports: A Connecticut city has paid USD 2,000 to restore access to its computer system after a ransomware attack. West Haven officials said Thursday they paid the money to anonymous attackers through the digital currency bitcoin to unlock 23 servers and restore access to city data. Read more on Deccan Chronicle.
Month: October 2018
Hackers breach HealthCare.gov system, get data on 75,000
Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar reports: A government computer system that interacts with HealthCare.gov was hacked earlier this month, compromising the sensitive personal data of some 75,000 people, officials said Friday. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services made the announcement late in the afternoon ahead of a weekend, a time slot agencies often use to release unfavorable…
NC: Notice to Catawba Valley Medical Center Patients of a Phishing Email Incident
This notice from their web site just showed up in my searches: Catawba Valley Medical Center (CVMC) is committed to protecting the security and confidentiality of our patients’ information. Regrettably, this notice concerns an incident that may have involved some of that information. On August 13, 2018, CVMC determined an unauthorized person may have gained…
Ex-Virginia teacher charged in hack of celebrities, others
Denise Lavoie reports: A former Virginia high school teacher has agreed to plead guilty in a hacking scheme that allowed him to obtain nude photographs and other private information from more than 200 people, including celebrities. Christopher Brannan, 30, a former teacher at Lee-Davis High School, was charged in April with aggravated identity theft and…
Information of 396K Users Exposed in Facepunch Data Breach
Sergiu Gatlan reports: As reported by Troy Hunt’s Have I Been Pwned breach notification service, the Facepunch game studio was the victim of a data breach in June 2016 which led to sensitive information of 396,650 users being exposed. […] Furthermore, the Facepunch studio said they knew about the security breach and that all people…
Ca: AHS failed to protect health information, privacy commissioner finds
We had noted this breach on this site back in 2016, but here’s the follow-up. CBC reports: Alberta Health Services has come under fire from the province’s privacy commissioner for its role in the largest and longest-duration privacy breach AHS has ever experienced. The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner reported Wednesday that a former AHS…