Andy Greenberg reports: A warning that unidentified hackers broke into an agency of the US federal government and stole its data is troubling enough. But it becomes all the more disturbing when those unidentified intruders are identified—and appear likely to be part of a notorious team of cyberspies working in the service of Russia’s military intelligence agency,…
Category: Government Sector
Data breach: Dfat reveals email addresses of vulnerable Australians stranded overseas
Margaret Simons reports: The private email addresses of hundreds of vulnerable Australian travellers stranded overseas have been accidentally revealed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The addresses were included in an email sent to multiple recipients before midday on Wednesday by the Covid-19 consular operations section of Dfat. Read more on The Guardian.
Hackers hit South African government fund for children and missing people
Mfuneko Toyana reports: Hackers attacked a South Africa’s justice department fund last week, the department said on Sept 30, but said it did not receive any ransom demands. They targeted a fund containing a pool of money held by the courts in trust on behalf of minors, unborn heirs and missing or absent persons, it…
Security lapse exposes hundreds of addresses of Minnesotans infected with COVID-19
Jay Kolls reports: In April, Gov. Tim Walz signed an executive order allowing the Minnesota Department of Health and the Minnesota Department of Public Safety to share addresses of COVID-19 patients with first responders across Minnesota. The governor imposed strict guidelines for sharing those addresses to protect the identity of Minnesotans with COVID-19. MDH and…
Inspector General’s Report Confirms CBP Contractor Was Hacked, Resulting In Sensitive Info Making Its Way To The Dark Web
Tim Cushing reports an update on a 2019 breach previously noted on this site; Last year, a CBP vendor suffered a data breach affecting more than 100,000 people who had crossed the border at checkpoints. The CBP refused to name the contractor involved in the breach, but internal documents indicated it was Perceptics. Perceptics provided and maintained the…
UK investigates cyberattack leaking Syria propaganda operations
The Middle East Monitor (MEMO) reports: The British government is probing a hack carried out on computer systems belonging to the British Foreign Ministry, which resulted in hundreds of files exposing its propaganda operations in Syria being stolen. In the massive security breach reported by the UK-based news outlet Middle East Eye, hackers sought out files…