By the end of 2016, a number of journalists and/or their employers had made an ethical decision not to report on hacks and in-progress extortion attempts by TheDarkOverlord. But did the lack of coverage enable the criminals to expand their operations without any public attention or public pressure on law enforcement to pursue them aggressively? …
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
TheDarkOverlord v2.0: now with threats of physical violence?
You may have never heard of Flathead Valley in Montana. I’ll admit that I had never heard of it until tonight when I received a tip to go look at a post on their sheriff’s Facebook page. And that’s when I learned that Flathead County schools had not only been hacked and threatened if they didn’t…
More than four months after phishing attack, AU Medical Center notifies patients and employees
I had this deja vu feeling reading a report by Tom Corwin: Nearly five months after it happened, AU Medical Center announced that some patients may have had their personal information compromised by an attack on faculty email accounts, the hospital announced today. The attack known as phishing, where users unknowingly open up legitimate-seeming but…
Raising our guard vs. mega-breaches
Enough with the federal posturing, frumpfering, and doing nothing. New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman basically says, fsck this sh*t…. we need to pass the New York Data Security Act. Read his OpEd in the Daily News.
Senator Warren introduces Equifax bill; launches industry probe
Chris Sanders reports: U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren said on Friday she has begun an investigation into Equifax’s (EFX.N) massive data breach and, along with 11 other Democratic senators, will introduce a bill to give consumers the ability to freeze their credit for free. Warren, who has built a reputation as a champion of consumers and…
Equifax data breach aftermath: lawsuits and criticism mount, stock prices plummet (Updates)
I can’t say I’m surprised given the size of the breach, but it’s still worth reporting that: More than 30 lawsuits have been filed in the United States against Equifax after the credit reporting company said thieves may have stolen personal information for 143 million Americans in one of the largest hackings ever. At least…