Elinor Mills reports: Hackers have released consumer data stolen from an online loan provider, after the company refused to pay an extortion fee. “On June 12, AmeriCash Advance received a fax, telling us that part of our Web site had been hacked. The letter went on to demand initial payment of $15,000 from us,” AmeriCash Advance, an…
Author: Dissent
UK: Data breach exposed as council launches new policy
Ouch. Information Age reports: A data breach at Dumfries and Galloway Council was reported just hours after the council announced a new data protection policy. The Scottish local council announced yesterday that it had approved a new data protection policy, having suffered two significant data breaches last year. In one incident, salary information about 9,000…
Should we send in CSI to figure out the source of a data dump?
Here’s a great example of the perils in trying to report on hacks or breaches disclosed on Twitter or Pastebin. A hacker who self-identified as Reckz0r initially claimed to have hacked Visa and MasterCard and to have dumped 50GB worth of data (without credit card numbers). I had my doubts, and wasn’t surprised to read…
LinkedIn sued over inadequate security
It was, of course, only a matter of time. VentureBeat reports that LinkedIn has been sued over the security breach that affected 6.5 million passwords. You can read the complaint on VentureBeat. The lawsuit claims that the firm’s policy promised “industry standard protocols” to protect the data, and that hashed passwords just don’t live up…
NY: Head of youth program fired over discarded sensitive documents
News12 reports on an incident in the Bronx: The head of a summer youth program in West Farms is out of a job after sensitive and personal information was found dumped out on the sidewalk. The discarded files were left in plain sight, piled in a Dumpster across from the Phipps Community Development Center. The…
Update: Laptop holding PERA data stolen from auditor’s pickup at hotel lot
We should have known or at least guessed. Trip Jennings provides additional background on the Public Employees Retirement Association of New Mexico breach reported previously on this blog. Parked at a Clovis Comfort Inn & Suites, the 2008 white Ford F350 pickup must have seemed an inviting target. Inside the truck’s cab were two laptop…