Jacob Bunge and Tony Dreibus report: Monsanto Co. confirmed Thursday that a security breach in one of the seed company’s servers left exposed some customer credit-card information and Monsanto employee data. The breach occurred in late March, affecting about 1,300 farmers who are customers of Monsanto’s Precision Planting division, which makes specialized seed-planting equipment, according…
Category: Hack
UK: OFFICE customers’ personal details compromised
Margi Murphy reports: High street shoe retailer OFFICE is the latest company to reveal that its customers’ names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and passwords were accessed in a “security breach”. No financial details were accessed, the retailer said in an email sent to its customers. Only accounts made before August 2013 were breached, it…
iPhone owners hit by ‘ransomware’ hack demanding money for their phones
James Vincent reports: An iPhone feature designed to discourage theft by letting users shut down their smartphone remotely has reportedly being compromised by hackers using it to hold mobiles to ransom. Posts from Apple’s official support forums describe how users’ Find My iPhone feature (also available for the iPad) has been hijacked by fraudsters who…
Computer hacker “Sabu” turned FBI mole sentenced in U.S. to time served
Bernard Vaughn and Nate Raymond report: A leading hacker who authorities say helped disrupt at least 300 cyber attacks after agreeing to become an FBI cooperator was sentenced to time served on Tuesday. Authorities say Hector Xavier Monsegur, a onetime member of the cyber-activist hacking group Anonymous who under the name “Sabu” co-founded the offshoot…
Spotify takes security ‘precautions’ after breach
Clara O’Brien reports: Streaming music service Spotify has become the latest company to be hit by a security breach as it admitted that it had uncovered “unauthorised access” to its systems. However, the firm said its investigation had shown only one user’s data had been accessed, and said it was not aware of any increased risk to…
Avast takes community forum offline after data breach
Jeremy Kirk reports: Prague-based antivirus company Avast said Monday it took its community forum offline after a data breach, but payment information was not compromised. Usernames and nicknames, email addresses and encrypted passwords were obtained in an attack over the weekend, wrote Avast CEO Vince Steckler on a company blog. The attack affected less than 400,000 of…