Reuter reports that the March 22 ransomware attack on Atlanta was even worse than they had let on. More than a third of the 424 software programs used by the city have been thrown offline or partially disabled in the incident, Atlanta Information Management head Daphne Rackley said. Nearly 30 percent of the affected applications…
Category: Government Sector
Feds say they caught ‘Vigilance’ hacker who broke into several state databases
Chao Xiong reports: A young hacker reeling from the Philando Castile case and the acquittal of the officer who killed him broke into several state databases last year and boasted about his exploits. “An innocent man is dead, while a guilty man is free,” the hacker, known as “Vigilance” tweeted in part last year. The…
MI: Phishing scam costs Shiawassee County $50,000
Tim Rath reports: The Shiawassee County financial administrator resigned this week after being caught in a phishing scam and mistakenly wiring $50,000 to an overseas bank account. Patricia Fitnich, who had been on the job about two years, thought she was replying to a message from Shiawassee County Board of Commissioners Chairman Jeff Bartz about…
‘Embarrassing’ leak shows EU falls short of own GDPR data law
Margi Murphy Ben Riley-Smith report: The European Commission has claimed it is not subject to the strict new data protection law that it has imposed across Europe, following an “embarrassing” leak of personal data on its website. Officials in Brussels admitted the bureaucracy that designed the rules is not itself compliant with the General Data Protection…
Oxnard city officials investigate data breach
Jeremy Childs reports: Oxnard city officials learned of a data breach last week that may have affected the personal data of utility customers in the city. On Friday, the city was contacted by a bank representative about fraudulent purchases being made with the cards people used to pay their utility bills using the city’s Click2Gov (Superion) online payment…
Ca: Town of Wasaga Beach recovering from ransomware attack, negotiating with hackers
Ken Hashizume reports: The Town of Wasaga Beach is slowly but surely recovering from a recent cyber attack. Staff discovered ransomware was installed on the Town’s computer system in April affecting the website and municipal services. The Town was working with OPP in negotiating with the hackers. They say they have since been able to…