David Landes reports: A group of Swedish journalists are sitting on a goldmine of 29 million online comments, with information about users’ identities, from news sites around the world thanks to a security flaw in debate moderation service Disqus. After outing several ‘online haters’ at home, which caused several resignations from the populist, far-right Sweden Democrat…
Category: Exposure
UK: Islington Town Hall data breach victims set to receive compensation payouts of up to £5k
Andrew Johnson reports: The [Islington] Town Hall has agreed to pay compensation totalling £43,000 to 14 residents whose personal details, including mental health problems and sexual orientation, were leaked in two disastrous data breaches last year. A full written apology will also be sent to the claimants, who have been awarded between £1,000 and £5,000…
Chinese hackers leak 20 million hotel guests’ data on WeChat
Patrick Boehler of the South China Morning Post reports: Hackers in China have leaked a database of an estimated 20 million hotel reservations on multiple websites and even WeChat, the wildly popular messaging service, reflecting failed government efforts to prevent massive leaks of personal data. Online security watchdog WooYun said in September that hackers had…
National American University students’ financial information exposed, but what laws protect them?
Joe O’Sullivan reports: When National American University moved from one Rapid City campus to a new location earlier this year, the school or a contractor appears to have improperly disposed of thousands of sensitive student financial records that included names, addresses, loan numbers and Social Security numbers, according to documents reviewed by the Rapid City…
NZ: Bank’s embarrassing privacy breach
Rob Kidd reports: ANZ has been left red-faced over a major privacy breach after it inadvertently sent bank statements for customers’ accounts containing hundreds of thousands of dollars to a two-year old boy. The bank botch saw Whangarei toddler Joel Morrison sent a pile of other people’s account statements, all of which contained considerably more…
Witchery pulls mobile site after customer details exposed
Sarah Michael reports: Witchery has shut down its mobile website after it was hit with a security breach that exposed customers’ personal details and orders. A glitch in the “track my order” function for online shopping opens personal details pages of other customers, and even allows them to edit the information. It also allows them…