Andrew Crocker of EFF responds to the announcement this week by DOJ about its revised policy for enforcement of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act: The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the notoriously vague anti-hacking law, is long overdue for major reform. Among many problems, the CFAA has been used to target security researchers whose work…
Author: Dissent
Greenland hit by cyber attack, finds its health service crippled
Graham Cluley reports: It appears that Costa Rica isn’t the only country making headlines as it battles cyber attackers. For the past week and a half, Greenland’s health service has reportedly been struggling to recover from a cyber attack that has crippled its IT systems, causing long waiting times and forcing doctors to resort to using pen and paper…
Phishing Attacks for Initial Access Surged 54% in Q1
Jai Vijayan reports: Threat actors doubled down on their use of phishing emails as an initial attack vector during the first quarter of 2022 — and in many cases then used that access to drop ransomware or to extort organizations in other ways. Researchers from Kroll recently analyzed data gathered from security incidents they responded…
Trust Stamp, a facial recognition company with a $7.2 million ICE contract, had dozens of peoples’ data exposed in breach
Caroline Haskins reports: Trust Stamp, a government contractor that develops facial recognition and surveillance tools for agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement, left the personal information of several dozen people unsecured on a breached database, Insider has learned. This information included names, birthdays, home addresses, and driver’s license data. An anonymous tipster who said they…
Fraudster who hacked SUNY Plattsburgh accounts gets 9 ¼ year prison sentence
Robert Gavin reports: A federal judge sentenced Michael P. Fish to 9 ¼ years in prison Friday, saying he depravedly hacked into the accounts of dozens of unsuspecting female students at SUNY Plattsburgh, stole their private photos and sold the images on the internet. With his family watching on a courtroom bench, the 26-year-old Fish sat in…
Battelle for Kids ransomware attack compromised records of 560,000 Chicago Public School students, employee
Nader Issa and Lauren FitzPatrick report: A massive data breach has exposed four years’ worth of records of almost 500,000 Chicago Public Schools students and nearly 60,000 employees, district officials told principals Friday. The attack targeted a company that has a no-bid contract with the district for teacher evaluations and involved basic student and staff…