Shelby Rose reports on a ransomware incident in Arkansas: A Sherwood telemarketing agency has unexpectedly closed its doors, leaving over 300 employees without jobs a few days before Christmas. In a letter to employees, CEO of The Heritage Company, Sandra Franecke saying their servers were attacked by hackers, who demanded a ransom, which they paid…
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
Chinese hacker group caught bypassing 2FA
Catalin Cimpanu reports: Security researchers say they found evidence that a Chinese government-linked hacking group has been bypassing two-factor authentication (2FA) in a recent wave of attacks. The attacks have been attributed to a group the cyber-security industry is tracking as APT20, believed to operate on the behest of the Beijing government, Dutch cyber-security firm…
The Hacker Who Took Down a Country
Kit Chellel reports: The attack against Liberia began in October 2016. More than a half-million security cameras around the world tried to connect to a handful of servers used by Lonestar Cell MTN, a local mobile phone operator, and Lonestar’s network was overwhelmed. Internet access for its 1.5 million customers slowed to a crawl, then…
Member of “Turkish Crime Family” who attempted to extort Apple in 2017 gets no prison time
Catalin Cimpanu reports: A 22-year-old man was sentenced today in London for his involvement in an extortion attempt against Apple, during which the suspect and co-conspirators threatened to mass-hack iCloud accounts and factory reset 250 million iPhones and iPads. The man, Kerem Albayrak, was sentenced today to a two-year suspended jail term, 300 hours of…
NYS Comptroller releases two more school district IT audits
By now, regular readers may wonder why I continue to post IT audits of New York school districts when the results have generally been so poor. Where’s the good news, you wonder? There really has been none or extremely little. Which is exactly why I will continue to post these — until people wake up…
UK: Information Commissioner’s Office takes enforcement action against pharmacy
From the ICO: The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has fined a London-based pharmacy £275,000 for failing to ensure the security of special category data. Doorstep Dispensaree Ltd, which supplies medicines to customers and care homes, left approximately 500,000 documents in unlocked containers at the back of its premises in Edgware. The documents included names, addresses,…