Matthew Lee of AP reports: The State Department has taken the unprecedented step of shutting down its entire unclassified email system as technicians repair possible damage from a suspected hacker attack. A senior department official said Sunday that “activity of concern” was detected in the system around the same time as a previously reported incident…
Category: Government Sector
California Highway Patrol notifies drivers of missing collision investigation reports
The California Highway Patrol (CHP) is notifying some drivers that collision investigation reports with their personal information was lost when a box containing the reports was damaged at a USPS facility. The box had been shipped on October 3 to Sacramento, and CHP learned of the problem on October 11. In a letter dated October…
Update: South Carolina extends free ID theft protection through October 2015
WMBF reports that South Carolina taxpayers are getting one more year of free IDtheft protection from CSID for the security breach in 2012 that compromised 3.8 million taxpayers’ data.
Civilian employee for Coast Guard accused of stealing personal information
Kaitlyn Naples reports: A Connecticut man who is an information technology contractor for the United States Coast Guard has pled guilty to stealing personal information. The United States District Attorney said Larry Mathews, 34, of Pawcatuck pled guilty to stealing information found on hundreds of computers and personal electronic devices that had been brought to…
Chinese hack U.S. weather systems, satellite network
Mary Pat Flaherty, Jason Samenow and Lisa Rein Hackers from China breached the federal weather network recently, forcing cybersecurity teams to seal off data vital to disaster planning, aviation, shipping and scores of other crucial uses, officials said. The intrusion occurred in late September but officials gave no indication that they had a problem until Oct. 20,…
AU: Asylum seeker privacy breach due to copy and paste – OAIC. Okay, but where’s the breach mitigation?
In February, we learned of a horrific privacy breach involving almost 10,000 asylum seekers. This breach is on my personal Top 10 Worst Breaches of 2014 because of the risk of harm to those exposed. A detention file created by Australia’s Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) accidentally exposed detainees’ personal details and was subsequently downloaded in about 16…