AAP reports: Japan will punish people who create or wilfully spread computer viruses with fines and prison terms of up to three years under a new law. Under the law, enacted by parliament today, police can seize email communication logs of suspects from internet service providers, among other information. The action, which has met with…
Author: Dissent
(follow-up) UK: Surrey Council boss admits confidence breach ‘mistakes’
Surrey County Council’s chief executive has addressed staff about the ‘irony’ of it picking up a record fine for ‘shocking’ breaches of privacy after he had praised them for their performance. CEO David McNulty made the comments to staff on June 8 in an internal email titled Be Sure You’re Secure. The email followed the…
Virgin alerts infected customers
About 1,500 customers of internet service provider Virgin Media have been warned that their PCs are infected with a malicious virus. The targeted customers had fallen victim to the SpyEye trojan that steals log-ins for online bank accounts. Letters have been sent to those affected, giving them advice on how to clean up their computers….
Hacked logins used to buy condoms and hijack PayPal, Facebook accounts
Ben Grubb and Asher Moses report: Australians are being advised by the government to change and vary their passwords after miscreants began using the logins of thousands of people leaked on to the web to break into Facebook and PayPal accounts. One claims to have bought a packet of condoms “for an elderly woman” using…
(update) Platte Valley Medical Center statement about alleged identity theft
June 16, 2011 (Brighton, CO) ?? Platte Valley Medical Center (PVMC) is undertaking an internal investigation into alleged identity theft by a former contract agency nurse who was engaged by PVMC from May 2010 to January 13, 2011. He was terminated by the hospital on that date for cause. That cause is unrelated to the…
Hospital turns to palm reading to ID patients
Lucas Mearian reports: NYU Langone Medical Center said it is the first hospital in the Northeast to use a biometric infrared scanning system that converts a digital palm image into a unique patient ID. The technology, called PatientSecure is a biometric reader that uses an infrared light to map an image of the blood-flow pattern…