Last month we started seeing reports of data leaks or breaches involving state unemployment benefits application portals. We also started seeing reports of lawsuits filed as a result. Ben Szalinski reports that in Illinois, one of the nearly 32,500 applicants who had private information exposed said it was used to access her bank account. Briana…
Category: Government Sector
Defense analyst sentenced to prison for media leaks
A former counterterrorism analyst who leaked classified information to two journalists, including one he was dating, has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement Thursday. Henry Kyle Frese was employed by the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2018 and 2019. Prosecutors said he shared…
China launches cyber attacks on government websites and banks following India massacre
Grace Macrae reports: China has opened another front against India with sustained cyber attacks targeting government websites and banking systems. The Chinese DDOS (distributed denial of service) attacks have targeted information websites and the country’s financial payments system. DDOS attacks are malicious attempts to overwhelm a network by flooding it with artificially created internet traffic….
OR: Keizer city computers hacked and ransomed for $48,000
Eric A. Howald reports: The city of Keizer’s computer system was hacked on Wednesday, June 10, and officials were only able to regain access to the data by paying the perpetrators a $48,000 ransom. At this point, no sensitive data appears to have been accessed or misused. Read more on The Keizer Times.
If you’re despairing at staff sharing admin passwords, look on the bright side. That’s CIA-grade security
Shaun Nichols reports: The CIA was so focused on developing whizzbang exploit code, it left any thought of basic computer security principles on the kitchen counter before dashing off to work each morning. That oversight led to the super-agency inadvertently spilling its hacking tools ultimately into the hands of WikiLeaks, which duly disclosed details of the spies’…
Lessons learned from the ANPR data leak that shook Britain
Ax Sharma reports: On April 28, 2020, The Register reported the massive Automatic Number-Plate Recognition (ANPR) system used by the Sheffield government authorities was leaking some 8.6 million driver records. An online ANPR dashboard responsible for managing the cameras, tracking license plate numbers and viewing vehicle images was left exposed on the internet, without any password or…