There has been a lot of publicity about a breach and then leak of data from National Public Data. Some early reports erroneously claimed that 2.9 billion people were affected. Other sources noted more accurately noted that 2.9 billion was the number of records and not the number of unique individuals. In its disclosure to…
Author: Dissent
CFIUS Fines T-Mobile $60 Million Over Unauthorized Data Access and Breach Response
Hunton Andrews Kurth writes: On August 14, 2024, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS”) disclosed that it had assessed a $60 million penalty against T-Mobile US, Inc. (“T-Mobile”) in connection with unauthorized data access incidents following T-Mobile’s 2020 merger (the “Merger”) with Sprint Corporation (“Sprint”). CFIUS is a U.S. government interagency…
Ransom campaign hits cloud servers
Catalin Cimpanu reports: A threat actor is hacking and extorting companies that have misconfigured their cloud server infrastructure. The data extortion campaign has been taking place since earlier this year and involves a large-scale scan of the internet for companies that have exposed their environment variable files. Also known as .ENV, these files act as…
NationalPublicData.com Hack Exposes a Nation’s Data
Brian Krebs reports: On July 21, 2024, denizens of the cybercrime community Breachforums released more than 4 terabytes of data they claimed was stolen from nationalpublicdata.com, a Florida-based company that collects data on consumers and processes background checks. The breach tracking service HaveIBeenPwned.com and the cybercrime-focused Twitter account vx-underground both concluded the leak is the same information first put up for…
Ransomware gang deploys new malware to kill security software
Sergiu Gatlan reports: RansomHub ransomware operators are now deploying new malware to disable Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) security software in Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver (BYOVD) attacks. Named EDRKillShifter by Sophos security researchers who discovered it during a May 2024 ransomware investigation, the malware deploys a legitimate, vulnerable driver on targeted devices to escalate…
Tabb Inc. Security Gaffe Exposes 200,000 Background Check Files for More Than Six Months (2)
An unsecured backup blob exposed pre-employment background checks on approximately 200,000 people. Applicant files contained various amounts of personal and occupational information, including SSN, name, address, driver’s license, date of birth, education and employment history, and in some cases, criminal background checks. Files went back 15 years. The blob was unsecured for at least six…