From a press release of March 18: Attorney General Luther Strange announced the conviction of a Georgia man for a felony related to attempts to access confidential information systems maintained by the State of Alabama. On Monday, Thomas Jack Hixon, 20, of Chickamauga, Georgia pleaded guilty in Calhoun County Circuit Court to Attempted Computer Tampering,…
Category: Government Sector
Oregon agency hacked; governor calls for study, changes
AP reports: Oregon officials said Thursday that they plan to restructure information technology functions after software found an external third-party had gained access to a state network. Gov. Kate Brown said in a statement that someone gained access to so-called metadata last week at the Department of Administrative Services, which handles technology for much of…
SC: Ex-Williamsburg County sheriff sentenced in $11 million ID theft scam
There’s a follow-up to a case that had puzzled me when I first noted it in September last year as it involved the fraudulent creation of ID theft victim reports to get Equifax to forgive debts. People had no idea that victim reports were being created in their names. Rod Overton reports: United States Attorney Bill…
Ca: Privacy breaches put personal info in wrong hands
Peter Cowan and Rob Antle of CBC News reveal more of what they found in the government’s response to a freedom of information request. In fact, 177 separate privacy breaches were reported by different government departments and agencies to the Office of Public Engagement over a recent period of nearly four years. CBC Investigates obtained…
Ca: Probe says there was no security breach – this time
Peter Jackson reports that William Lorimer’s claims of a breach involving botnets and government servers were not confirmed by EWA-Canada, who conducted an investigation of his claims: EWA-Canada found that both alerts were likely false alarms. But in its conclusions, EWA condemned how the office handled the situation, saying there were no formal procedures in place to…
Ca: Wiseman says relax on security breach
There’s a follow-up or update to a breach previously noted on this site. In the House of Assembly, Liberal MHA Paul Lane raised the issue of a report in The Weekend Telegram. A former government security analyst told The Telegram about a security breach discovered in June 2013, connected to “botnet” servers in Eastern Europe…