Cathy Locke reports: A former state employee has been sentenced to 210 days in jail for using his work computers in pursuit of ways to commit identity theft. Matthew Shadle, 34, was also sentenced to five years probation after pleading no contest to a felony charge of unlawfully accessing and removing information from government computers and…
Category: Breach Incidents
Pacific Biosciences of California notifying employees of breach
Pacific Biosciences of California is notifying employees and dependents after a laptop with personal information was stolen from an employee’s home. The theft occurred on September 16. In a letter to those affected, Natalie Welch, Senior Director of Human Resources, writes that the personal information involved included names, contact information, birthdates, Social Security numbers, direct…
$1.66M in Limbo After FBI Seizes Funds from Cyberheist
Brian Krebs reports: A Texas bank that’s suing a customer to recover $1.66 million spirited out of the country in a 2012 cyberheist says it now believes the missing funds are still here in the United States — in a bank account that’s been frozen by the federal government as part of an FBI cybercrime investigation. Read…
Home Depot breach prompts class action in Canada, too
Richard Blackwell reports: Martin Knuth has made so many purchases at Home Depot that he regards the store as “my second home.” But the recent security breach at the home renovation retailer upset Mr. Knuth, a retiree who lives in Regina, Sask., so much that he volunteered to become the representative plaintiff in the first…
CA: Indio man arrested in credit card theft case
An Indio, California man was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of misusing customers’ credit card numbers for fraudulent purposes. Vladimir Pustilnikov, 38, claimed to own B&E Appliance Heating and Air Conditioning, but law enforcement said, “The license number he advertised on his service contracts and business cards does not belong to him.” Law enforcement suspects that…
NEAT Management Group joins stolen laptop club
Tim McCoy & Associates (dba NEAT Management Group) is notifying employees, partnering agents, and insurance carriers that their names, social security numbers, dates of birth, contact information, and in some cases, employer identification number, were on an unencrypted laptop stolen from a software programmer. The laptop theft occurred August 27, but it appears that NEAT did…