Catalin Cimpanu reports: In what appears to be a first on the cyber-espionage scene, a nation-state-backed hacking group has used a Google Chrome extension to infect victims and steal passwords and cookies from their browsers. This is the first time an APT (Advanced Persistent Threat –an industry term for nation-state hacking groups) has been seen…
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
SD Calif. Dismisses Data Security Breach Class Action Against Mortgage Company
Christopher P. Hahn. writes: The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California recently dismissed a consumer’s putative class action lawsuit against a mortgage lending and servicing company for purported damages sustained as a result of a security breach wherein his personal information was compromised, and the hackers attempted to open credit cards in…
The US Leans on Private Firms to Expose Foreign Hackers
William G. Rich reports: When the Democratic National Committee realized they had been hacked in April 2016, they turned to experts from a private company: the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. Within a day, the company had identified two Russian state-sponsored hacking groups inside the DNC network. Within a few weeks, it publicly explained its analysis in a…
Allergy practice pays $125,000 to settle doctor’s disclosure of patient information to a reporter
From HHS, this enforcement action press release: Allergy Associates of Hartford, P.C. (Allergy Associates), has agreed to pay $125,000 to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and to adopt a corrective action plan to settle potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act…
Belgian Data Protection Authority reports jump in data breach notifications
Telecompaper reports: The Belgian Data Protection Authority reported a sharp increase in the number of data breaches reported to the regulator since the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation took effect in May, at 317 compared to 13 in 2017. The health, insurance, government, telecom and financial sectors were the top sources of the notifications. The…
U.S. Says Russia, Other Nations, Are Uncooperative on Cybercrime Investigations
Dennis Fisher reports: A top United States law enforcement official called out Russia for not cooperating with cybercrime investigations on Russian citizens, and said the U.S. will continue to “identify nations that routinely block the fair administration of justice and fail to act in good faith”. In a speech before the Interpol General Assembly on…