Yip Wai Yee reports: The Central Depository (CDP) and two other organisations have been fined a total of $47,000 for breaching data privacy laws. CDP received the biggest fine of $32,000 after it mailed dividend cheques to outdated addresses, putting more than 200 account holders at risk of having their personal data disclosed. According to…
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
INTERPOL report shows alarming rate of cyberattacks during COVID-19
From INTERPOL: An INTERPOL assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on cybercrime has shown a significant target shift from individuals and small businesses to major corporations, governments and critical infrastructure. With organizations and businesses rapidly deploying remote systems and networks to support staff working from home, criminals are also taking advantage of increased security vulnerabilities…
Leaky S3 buckets have gotten so common that they’re being found by the thousands now, with lots of buried secrets
Shaun Nichols reports: The massive amounts of exposed data on misconfigured AWS S3 storage buckets is a catastrophic network breach just waiting to happen, say experts. The team at Truffle Security says its automated search tools were able to stumble across some 4,000 open Amazon S3 buckets that included data companies would not want public, things like…
Netwalker ransomware earned $25 million in just five months
Lawrence Abrams reports: The Netwalker ransomware operation has generated a total of $25 million in ransom payments since March 1st according to a new report by McAfee. Netwalker is a Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) operation that began operating in late 2019, where affiliates are enlisted to distribute the ransomware and infect victims in return for a 60-70% cut of ransom payments….
Cyber insurance: The moral quandary of paying criminals who stole your data
Asha Barbaschow reports: Earlier this year, a club with around 70,000 members found itself in a pickle: Pay a ransom or risk the personal information of those members being exposed. In this scenario, the club paid the ransomware. It was decided that the financial hit of paying outstripped the reputational harm to that business. They…
Coronavirus: Iran cover-up of deaths revealed by data leak
BBC reports: The number of deaths from coronavirus in Iran is nearly triple what Iran’s government claims, a BBC Persian service investigation has found. The government’s own records appear to show almost 42,000 people died with Covid-19 symptoms up to 20 July, versus 14,405 reported by its health ministry. The number of people known to…