Harper Neidig reports: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Wednesday told Congress that it only has 40 full-time employees dedicated to overseeing internet privacy and data security and requested lawmakers give the agency more resources to adequately police tech companies. FTC Chairman Joseph Simons, a Republican appointed by President Trump, wrote in a letter to…
Month: April 2019
This computer scientist beats hackers at their own game
Holly Ober reports: Fatemah Alharbi breaks things in order to learn how to fix them. Not just any old things. Computer operating systems, to be exact, and she conducted research that earned public gratitude from Apple. If she doesn’t look like a hacker that’s because she isn’t, really. She’s a doctoral candidate in computer science…
Ninth Circuit Upholds 27-Year Sentence for Russian Hacker
Nathan Solis reports: A Ninth Circuit panel upheld the 27-year prison sentence of a Russian computer hacker who was extradited to the United States while on vacation with his family in the Maldives to face charges he stole credit card numbers and millions of dollars. Roman Seleznev claimed the U.S. government kidnapped him when he…
The teenage hackers who’ve been given a second chance
Chris Quevatre reports: Step inside the offices of Bluescreen and you’ll find some of the UK’s most talented teenage hackers, dragged from a world of crime to fight for the other side. These young computer experts have swapped the confines of their bedrooms for a fairly ordinary looking cyber security company in Plymouth. Bluescreen employs…
Ca: Thousands of sensitive files unwittingly made public at Montsion trial
Laura Osman reports: Thousands of potentially personal and sensitive files belonging to an Ottawa community housing agency were unwittingly released to Ontario’s police watchdog in 2016 and have been sitting in court as an unsealed exhibit for weeks. News of the breach was revealed this week during the manslaughter trial of Const. Daniel Montsion, who…
How hackers use ransomware to hide data breaches and other attacks
Dan Swinhoe reports: Although ransomware attacks are on the decline — Darktrace suggests infections have decreased by as much as 28 percent between 2017 and 2018 — the threat these extortion attacks pose is still very real and for reasons beyond disruption to operations. More sophisticated attackers are using ransomware to cover their tracks in…