Francesca Fionda reports: Up on the roof of the Vancouver Public Library, privacy researcher Sarah Jamie Lewis connects a small antenna to her laptop to listen in on what appears to be a major ongoing breach of sensitive health data of patients in the Vancouver area. For months, she says, personal information has been sent…
Month: September 2019
Undisclosed number of Boy Scouts and their parents had their information exposed by Trails End
Katie Peralta reports: A partner of the Boy Scouts of America inadvertently exposed the personal information of children and their parents last month. What happened: Boy Scouts nationwide sell popcorn to raise funds for activities like camping trips — just like Girl Scouts sell cookies. To facilitate the sales process, Boy Scouts of America uses…
Data breach after lax NZTA security
Phil Pennington reports: The New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) has admitted to a technology botch up leaving what was meant to be a highly secure data key wide open. “The transport agency can confirm the Google API was incorrectly left open as part of the Traffic Watcher pre-production set up,” NZTA said in statement. Read…
Money for Nothing: Ransomware Plagues Local Governments
Dennis Fisher writes: The string of ransomware attacks against state and local government agencies that began to ramp up a couple years ago is continuing unabated, and the attackers in some incidents are becoming quite aggressive with their ransom demands. […] Data collected by security firm Barracuda on ransomware attacks shows that there were 55…
Oklahoma pension fund reports $4.2 million cyber theft
AP reports: The FBI is investigating after computer hackers managed to steal about $4.2 million in funds from a pension system for retired Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers and other state law enforcement officers, state officials said Friday. A notice posted on the Oklahoma Law Enforcement Retirement System website said the agency notified the FBI and…
Face Recognition App Leaks Photos Of Suspects From Madurai Police Database
Kritti Bhalla reports: In a major privacy breach, Tamil Nadu police’s Madurai unit’s database of thousands of ‘suspected criminals’ was made public without its knowledge. The database included names and photographs of the people under the scanner. The leaked data also included OTP codes, administrator password and details of the police officers using the app….