Andy Mannix reports: Cyberattackers have infiltrated e-mail accounts for about 20 Hennepin County employees since late June, and may have accessed the private information of people who rely on the county’s services, county officials revealed Thursday. Using e-mails disguised as pay-raise notifications, a sophisticated phishing scam duped the employees into giving up their login information,…
Category: Government Sector
FCC admits it was never actually hacked
Devin Coldewey reports: The FCC has come clean on the fact that a purported hack of its comment system last year never actually took place, after a report from its inspector general found a lack of evidence supporting the idea. Chairman Ajit Pai blamed the former chief information officer and the Obama administration for providing…
Washington County report traces path of leaked information
CJ Lovelace reports: A document alleging sexual harassment by a Washington County commissioner was leaked to the father of a local TV news reporter, leading to a 2017 news report about it, according to a county investigative report released Thursday. The report, which was completed a year ago, says 10 county employees were interviewed about…
Joint Base Charleston notifies airmen of possible breach of personal information
Harve Jacobs reports: A mistake made at a medical clinic caused a potential breach of personal information of current and former airmen at Joint Base Charleston. The base says folders of paper records were improperly created at a base clinic. A former airman says he received a letter from the 628th medical group mentioning a “potential…
After Singapore medical data hack, Hong Kong’s Department of Health becomes latest cyberattack victim
Clifford Lo reports that the HK Department of Health might have caught a break on a recent ransomware attack: Hong Kong’s Department of Health has become the latest victim of a cyberattack after three of its computers were hit by ransomware which left data inaccessible, prompting police to open a criminal investigation. The targeted computers…
BitPaymer Ransomware Infection Forces Alaskan Town to Use Typewriters for a Week
Catalin Cimpanu reports: On Monday, officials from Matanuska-Susitna (Mat-Su), a borough part of the Anchorage Metropolitan Statistical Area, said they are still recovering from a ransomware infection that took place last week, on July 24. The ransomware infection crippled the Borough’s government networks and has led to the IT staff shutting down a large swath…