On March 17, 2002, there was a break-in and burglary at Castlereagh police station. The records that were stolen put lives at risk, as the stolen data included a list of officers in the Special Branch intelligence unit with contact details, and the code names of paramilitary agents and their handlers. Dozens of officers subsequently had to move…
Category: Government Sector
Maryland admits to exposing personal information of hundreds
WUSA reports: Maryland’s Department of Information Technology is admitting to exposing the “Personally Identifiable Information” of hundreds of people and companies that do business with the state by accidentally publishing a list of them on a public website. Data exposed included Social Security and Tax ID numbers. Read more on WUSA.
U.S. Senators calls for federal investigation after News 3 stories on Veterans Administration breach
Adam Schrager has more on how News 3’s investigative reporting has resulted in a response from U.S. Senators: Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) is calling for a federal investigation into how the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs handles the personally identifiable information of America’s veterans. This comes after a News 3 investigation into an instance in April…
UK: Crown Prosecution Service fined £200,000 for breach involving contractor
Back in September, I prefaced a breach post involving the U.K.’s Crown Prosecution Service with the comment, “This is one of those really terrible breaches that are the stuff of nightmares.” It appears the Information Commissioner’s Office concurred, as CPS has been fined £200,000 after laptops containing videos of police interviews were stolen from a private…
Six months after OPM hack detected, 75% of victims still not notified
Dustin Volz reports: Fewer than a quarter of 21 million federal workers hit by a major computer hack have been officially told that their personal information was compromised, six months after the breach was detected, a U.S. government official said on Tuesday. About 5 million notifications about the hack have been sent out so far,…
Pennsylvania man gets prison for hiring “hacker” to erase court fines
From the do-you-know-who-you’re-hiring-on-Craigslist dept: Miles Snyder reports: A Harrisburg man will serve at least two years in prison for recruiting a computer hacker to wipe out fines he owed to Lancaster County. Zachary J. Landis, 27, was sentenced to 2-4 years in state prison after pleading guilty last week to felony counts of computer trespass, unlawful…