ABC reports: The Souderton Area School District has become the most recent apparent victim of a ransomware cyberattack that struck soon after the beginning of the new school year. Superintendent Dr. Frank Gallagher says that the district’s computer network was hit by the malware attack on September 1, after students had returned to class the…
Month: September 2019
Scraping A Public Website Doesn’t Violate the CFAA, Ninth Circuit (Mostly) Holds
Orin Kerr writes: The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has handed down a groundbreaking decision today on the federal computer hacking law, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). In HiQ Labs v. LinkedIn, the court held that scraping a public website is likely not a CFAA violation. Under the new decision, violating the CFAA…
Secret Service Investigates Breach at U.S. Govt IT Contractor
Brian Krebs reports: The U.S. Secret Service is investigating a breach at a Virginia-based government technology contractor that saw access to several of its systems put up for sale in the cybercrime underground, KrebsOnSecurity has learned. The contractor claims the access being auctioned off was to old test systems that do not have direct connections…
DoD Releases Public Draft of Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification and Seeks Industry Input
Susan B. Cassidy, Samantha Clark, Ryan Burnette and Ian Brekke of Covington & Burling write: On September 4, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition released Version 0.4 of its draft Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) for public comment. The CMMC was created in response to growing concerns by Congress and within…
Capital One Hack Prosecution Raises New and Old Questions about Adequacy of CFAA
Timothy H. Gray, Ethan Kisch and Michael F. Buchanan of Patterson Belknap write: On August 28, 2019, almost a month after Paige A. Thompson was arrested based on allegations that she hacked into servers rented by Capital One Financial Corporation, a criminal indictment was returned charging her with one count each of computer and wire…
UNICEF data leak reveals personal info of 8,000 online learners
Vince Chadwick reports: The United Nations children’s agency, UNICEF, has inadvertently leaked personal information belonging to thousands of users of its online learning portal Agora. The website offers free training courses to UNICEF staff and members of the public on issues such as child rights, humanitarian action, research, and data. On Aug. 26, an email…