A Greater Manchester council has lost details of 200 disabled residents – a year after a previous security blunder. Wigan Council believes a memory stick containing hundreds of confidential details fell out of an employee’s pocket in January…. Town hall chiefs have suspended one member of staff and disciplined another in relation to the latest…
Category: Government Sector
Dutch Dept. of Public Works leaks subscribers’ data
Karin Spaink summarizes, in English, a breach reported on Webwereld on January 27: The Dpt of Public Works (Rijkswaterstaat) installed a new profile system on their web site that subscribers to their newsletter had to use. When logging in to the system, subscribers were presented with the personal data of the previous visitor. The leaked…
Data breach: Trail points to China in Iowa computer hack
William Petroski reports: Iowa investigators suspect a serious breach of a state government computer database last week originated in China, which a congressional panel says has increased its use of cyber espionage tactics. The hackers gained access to a computer system operated by the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission. The breach allowed access to personal…
Iowa racetrack and casino employee data on hacked server
The Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission said Friday that its database containing licensing information of racetrack and casino employees had been compromised after a firewall was breached by an outside Internet address. A news release issued by the commission said that the breach took place Tuesday when one of the firewalls “was circumvented due to…
UK: Security company axed after leak of MPs’ expenses files
Jason Lewis reports: A security firm responsible for guarding some of Britain’s most sensitive Government documents, including the two Iraq War dossiers, has been axed following the damaging leak of the MPs’ expenses files. The move comes after a long-running internal investigation into who released the damaging material which led to Ministerial resignations and a…
UK: Information safety fears as personal data is lost
Adam Morris and Michael Blackley report: Fresh fears have been raised over the protection of personal information after both the city council and NHS Lothian were hit by new “data loss” incidents. The Evening News has uncovered a series of cases where sensitive information has been lost or stolen in the past year. They range…