From the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, an announcement concerning the alleged rogue insider breach at a financial institution that impacted the personal information of more than 2.9 million of its members, including 2.7 million individual members and 173,000 business members. On July 8, the Commissioner announced: The Commission d’accès à l’information du…
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
Anaesthetic devices ‘vulnerable to hackers’
Chris Baraniuk reports: A type of anaesthetic machine that has been used in NHS hospitals can be hacked and controlled from afar if left accessible on a hospital computer network, a cyber-security company says. A successful attacker would be able to change the amount of anaesthetic delivered to a patient, CyberMDX said. Alarms designed to…
UK: Security Medway Council reforms eforms to stop blurting out residents’ details
Jude Karabus reports: Medway council in Kent has corked a hole in its website that spat out residents’ names, mailing addresses, phone numbers and email addresses after a Reg reader got in touch to complain. The breach appeared courtesy of some of Medway Council’s electronic forms. The council’s eforms were conceived during a collaboration of…
ICO statement: Intention to fine British Airways £183.39m under GDPR for data breach
In September, 2018, the International Airlines Group (IAG) announced that British Airways was investigating a possible data breach involving its website and mobile application. Soon after, we learned that 380,000 payments had been compromised in a few weeks between August 21, when Magecart malware was injected, and early September. Today, the U.K.’s Information Commissioner’s Office…
Sometimes, paying the ransom doesn’t solve the problems
Paying ransom doesn’t always guarantee that a ransomware victim will be able to recover all of the encrypted data. Some more food for thought in a news story today about ransomware in the New York Times that highlights how small government entities are being targeted recently: The F.B.I. said it had received nearly 1,500 ransomware…
Mystery of NSA Leak Lingers as Stolen Document Case Winds Up
Tami Abdollah and Eric Tucker of AP report on what is arguably the most significant insider breach in our government of this century: Federal agents descended on the suburban Maryland house with the flash and bang of a stun grenade, blocked off the street and spent hours questioning the homeowner about a theft of government…