Julianne Pepitone reports: The Internal Revenue Service revealed Monday that criminals potentially accessed tax information for a total of 338,000 taxpayers — triple the amount feared when the breach was first disclosed in May. The IRS had originally said that hackers potentially accessed information for 114,000 taxpayers via an online system. The agency did a further review and…
Category: Government Sector
OPM Hit With Another Data Breach Class Action By Judge
The plaintiff in one of the class action lawsuits filed against the government over the massive OPM databreach is a judge. Courtney Coren reports on McGarry v. Office of Personnel Management et al., Case No. 1:15-cv-01705, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. OPM, DHS, and Keypoint Government Solutions are named as defendants. Read more…
Florida Highway Patrol trooper sues two Jacksonville cops, alleging they illegally looked up her information
Here we go again – cops behaving badly with databases. Andrew Panzati reports: After a Florida Highway Patrol trooper ticketed a Miami police officer for driving 120 mph, FDLE records showed that about 90 people across the state — including two Jacksonville police officers — looked up the trooper’s personal information using a police database…
Hacker hits 24 sites to ‘alert’ govt
Arab News reports: A national hacked more than 24 government websites Saturday morning in just two hours after those in charge of these websites ignored messages of a possible attack, said an online newspaper. Through his Twitter account, the hacker “Cyber of Emotion” said that after the government websites ignored his messages about a possible…
Seek and ye shall find: North Dakota breach affecting state employees and volunteers bigger than originally realized
From the North Dakota Information Technology Department, yesterday: ITD has completed its investigation stemming from a cyber-attack that occurred on an ITD-hosted server earlier this summer. Upon identifying the attack, ITD immediately secured the server, locked down the data, and started an investigation. Since that time, the department has been working with federal and state…
UK: Prison laptop scandal: How the computers were hacked
Paul Peachey reports: The welcome screen on the prison laptop was simple to navigate. Prison officials clicked on the dog icon, inmates clicked on the cat. Clicking on the dog – and entering the password – allowed access to a section with administrator privileges and access to the internet. The cat was a gateway to…