The Guardian reports: Parliament has been hit by a “sustained and determined” cyber-attack by hackers attempting to gain access to MPs’ and their staffers’ email accounts. Both houses of parliament were targeted on Friday in an attack that sought to gain access to accounts protected by weak passwords. MPs said they were unable to access…
Category: Government Sector
AU: Confidential child protection files on sale at Alice Springs tip shop
Jano Gibson reports: Dozens of confidential documents, including a child protection investigation and a child death file, have been found at the Alice Springs tip shop, in a major privacy breach involving the Northern Territory Families department. The files relate to 33 clients and staff members of Territory Families dating back to 2009. They were…
Personal information of 16 Utahns stolen from DCFS employee’s vehicle, officials say
Carter Williams reports: The private information of 16 people was stolen in May after a Utah Department of Family and Child Services employee’s vehicle was broken into and copies of identification records needed for background checks were stolen. The break-in occurred on May 16 in the Salt Lake Valley, according to Ashley Sumner, a public…
Passaic Housing Authority battles employee over data breach, rules on rent hikes
Nicholas Katzban reports: An internal investigation by the Passaic Housing Authority has named employee Linda Colon as the suspected source of last month’s data breach, which the authority said compromised the personal information of 50 to 60 public housing residents. But Colon has not been charged with any crime, and says the documents involved in the alleged leak…
Hacker stole satellite data from US Department of Defence
The following press release was issued by the National Crime Agency today: A computer hacker has admitted stealing hundreds of user accounts from a US military communications system. Sean Caffrey, 25, of Sutton Coldfield, accessed and stole the ranks, usernames and email addresses of more than 800 users of a satellite communications system, as well…
Hong Kong privacy watchdog blasts electoral office for massive data breach
Ng Kang-Chung reports: A report by the Privacy Commissioner found the electoral office failed to take adequate steps to protect the personal data of Hong Kong’s 3.78 million voters stored in one of two laptop computers that were stolen during the chief executive election in March. Read more on South China Morning Post. Kang-Chung provides…