Brent Kendall reports: The Federal Trade Commission is offering a strong defense of its powers to police cybersecurity practices against a challenge by Wyndham Worldwide Corp. We wrote about Wyndham’s challenge earlier this month in a case involving attacks by hackers on the hotel chain’s computer systems between 2008 and 2010. The FTC sued Wyndham last year…
Category: U.S.
GA: Callaway Gardens alerts customers of potential credit card fraud
Chuck Williams reports that a number of companies have been notified by card processors of what may be a major breach. In Callaway Gardens’ case, it seems to involve malware, but the other companies affected are not named nor whether the same malware was involved in their compromises: Consumers who have used credit or debit…
Stockton Police Chief Arrested for Identity Theft Stemming from Love Triangle
Another case where someone in law enforcement hacked and misused a law enforcement database for personal reasons? The chief of police is the last person you expect to be arrested, but on Tuesday deputies from the Jo Daviess Sheriff’s Department took Stockton Police Chief Robert Beeter into custody. Beeter’s charges of 16 counts of identity theft…
Are TerraCom and YourTel the poster children for how NOT to respond to a breach?
Isaac Wolf reports: A month ago, two phone carriers participating in a federal benefit program were alerted that sensitive customer records, including Social Security numbers and bank-account records, were freely posted online. Now, Oklahoma-based TerraCom Inc. and affiliate YourTel America Inc. — the companies that collected the records — say they don’t plan to notify…
Proxy advisory firm settles SEC charges over data breach: info for concert tickets and meals deal incurs $300,000 fine
Sarah N. Lynch reports: Institutional Shareholder Services has settled civil charges by U.S. regulators that an employee of the prominent proxy advisory firm shared nonpublic voting data in exchange for meals and concert tickets. The Securities and Exchange Commission said on Thursday that ISS, a unit of MSCI Inc, will pay a $300,000 penalty and…
Vendini hacked; customers’ credit card numbers possibly accessed
Krister Rollins reports: The Maine Attorney General’s office is issuing an alert for people who may have used an out-of-state service for buying tickets for shows and other forms of entertainment recently. The service, Venidini (sic), Inc., has been hacked, exposing financial information for tens of thousands of customers. Vendini sent a letter to Maine’s…