David Bol reports: Scotland’s auditor general has revealed that a huge cyber attack on the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) was carried out after “human error” allowed criminals to access systems. Sepa suffered a huge ransomware attack on Christmas Eve in 2020 which led to around 1.2GB of data, amounting to at least 4,000 files,…
Category: Government Sector
Illinois Housing Development Authority addresses data breach
WCIA reports: The Illinois Housing Development Authority issued a statement today addressing a security breach of its rental payment web portal last week. The IHDA became aware of the breach on Feb. 1. when some tenant applicants were able to see documents submitted by other applicants. The IHDA immediately took the portal offline and blocked…
Potential data breach at Washington licensing department investigated
King5 reports: The Washington Department of Licensing (DOL) is investigating after it detected suspicious activity involving professional and occupational license data during the week of Jan. 24. The potential breach could have affected thousands of professionals, and the DOL took the precaution of shutting down the Professional Online Licensing and Regulatory Information System (POLARIS) to protect licensees’…
France, Department of Seine-Saint-Denis: ransomware attack, several municipalities involved
Marco A. DeFelice reports: In the night between 5 and 6 December last, the ransomware group Hive managed to penetrate the IT systems of the Syndicat Intercommunal d’Informatique (SII), an IT service provider based in Bobigny, a municipality of 54,000 people north of Paris. In addition to the city of Bobigny, the SII provides IT…
Rhode Island attorney general subpoenas RIPTA, UnitedHealthcare over data breach
Edward Fitzpatrick reports: Attorney General Peter F. Neronha’s office has issued administrative subpoenas to the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority and UnitedHealthcare over a data breach that compromised the personal information of 22,000 people. The subpoenas, or civil investigative demand letters, say the attorney general’s office was notified on Dec. 23 of a “significant information…
Security issue may have made some personal information vulnerable on WSDOT system
OLYMPIA – A vulnerability involving a Washington State Department of Transportation system may have exposed personal information stored in an internal database of about 2,200 people, and the agency is reaching out to help notify them of the incident. It is not known if anyone obtained the information for illegal use, and the vulnerability within…