Brian Krebs reports: The U.S. Secret Service is investigating a breach at a Virginia-based government technology contractor that saw access to several of its systems put up for sale in the cybercrime underground, KrebsOnSecurity has learned. The contractor claims the access being auctioned off was to old test systems that do not have direct connections…
Category: Government Sector
Student pleads guilty to IRS hack attempt for Trump tax returns
Charlie Osborne reports: The subject of past tax returns remains a sore issue for US President Trump and one student who attempted to take matters into his own hands may be facing jail time for his efforts. Andrew Harris, a previous student at Haverford College, tried to hack his way into systems belonging to the…
Data breach after lax NZTA security
Phil Pennington reports: The New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) has admitted to a technology botch up leaving what was meant to be a highly secure data key wide open. “The transport agency can confirm the Google API was incorrectly left open as part of the Traffic Watcher pre-production set up,” NZTA said in statement. Read…
Oklahoma pension fund reports $4.2 million cyber theft
AP reports: The FBI is investigating after computer hackers managed to steal about $4.2 million in funds from a pension system for retired Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers and other state law enforcement officers, state officials said Friday. A notice posted on the Oklahoma Law Enforcement Retirement System website said the agency notified the FBI and…
Unalaska recovers $2.3M after phishing email scam
Hope McKenney reports: More than $2.3 million dollars has been returned to the City of Unalaska, after a nearly two-month federal investigation into a fraudulent financial request. Between May 15 and July 9, the city paid out $2,985,406.10 to a fraudulent bank account as a result of a phishing email scam. The sender of the…
No municipality paid ransoms in ‘coordinated ransomware attack’ that hit Texas
Catalin Cimpanu reports: A coordinated ransomware attack hit 22 Texas local governments, but none of the impacted municipalities paid ransom demands, Texas state officials said this week. Three weeks after the incident took place, the Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR) said that more than half of the impacted entities are now back to operations…