For those who may not know, Washington State produces its own data breach report annually. Here’s a snippet from their report: In 2019, the total number of breaches reported to our office increased by nearly 20%, with just over 70% resulting from a malicious cyberattack. Yep, the percentage increase in number of incidents/reports sounds about…
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
New and improved FTC data security orders: Better guidance for companies, better protection for consumers
I held off on posting this one as so many people need a bit more time to get back into the swing of things after the holidays. Andrew Smith, Director of the FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection, posted this on January 6 on the FTC’s site: When Chairman Simons and I arrived at the FTC,…
MAZE Relaunches “Name and Shame” Website, Continues Dumping Data from Reluctant Victims
Sarah Coble reports: A threat group has once again taken to the internet to publish data stolen from alleged victims who refuse to cooperate with its ransom demands. In December 2019, the MAZE ransomware group published online a portion of the 120 GB of data they claimed to have stolen from Southwire, North America’s most prominent wire…
SG: Public healthcare cluster NHG fined $6,000 for not securing personal data
Hariz Baharudin reports: Public healthcare cluster National Healthcare Group (NHG) has been fined $6,000 for failing to secure personal data – a year after another healthcare cluster, SingHealth, received a record fine after a breach in its database. Five other companies, including Safra and Creative Technology, have also been sanctioned over the past two months by…
UK: DSG Retail Ltd fined £500,000 for failing to secure information of at least 14 million people
From the Information Commissioner’s Office, this release: The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has fined DSG Retail Limited (DSG) £500,000 after a ‘point of sale’ computer system was compromised as a result of a cyber-attack, affecting at least 14 million people. An ICO investigation found that an attacker installed malware on 5,390 tills at DSG’s Currys PC World…
What OPSEC? Member of “thedarkoverlord” allegedly used his personal details to set up hacking and extortion-related accounts.
In what seems like a mind-boggling OPSEC #FAIL, a U.K. man associated with thedarkoverlord allegedly used his real details to create bank accounts as well as to open email accounts, phone numbers, vpn, Twitter, and PayPal accounts that thedarkoverlord used as part of its operations to hack and extort victims. For a group that signed…