Jennifer H. Svan reports: The theft of five thumb drives from an unlocked vehicle may have compromised the personal information of hundreds of pupils, their parents and staff members at a Defense Department school in Germany, school officials said Wednesday. Parents of more than 900 students at Ramstein Intermediate School were notified of the possible…
Category: Government Sector
Two Utah websites claim hacker attacks cost them $180K; @ItsKahuna challenges the price tag
Back at the beginning of the year, the Salt Lake City Police Department and Utah Chiefs of Police were among a number of law enforcement organizations hacked in #OpPiggyBank. A hacker whose Twitter handle is @ItsKahuna was subsequently charged in the incidents. Now John Anthony Borell is challenging the organizations’ claims about what the hacks…
Forensic report on SCDOR breach
Here’s Mandiant’s report on the breach at the South Carolina Department of Revenue. From the Executive Summary, a summary of the attack: Summary of the Attack A high level understanding of the most important aspects of the compromise are detailed below. 1. August 13, 2012: A malicious (phishing) email was sent to multiple Department of…
Security breach after photos of Prince William shared online
TVNZ reports: Photographs showing a day in the life of Prince William posted online by St James’ s Palace have caused an embarrassing security blunder for the Ministry of Defence in the United Kingdom. The ministry was yesterday forced to reset the user names and computer passwords of dozens of Royal Air Force staff after…
PK: Crucial data from Balochistan prison chief’s office stolen
Essa Tareen of News Tribe reports: The credibility of government’s information system is being questioned after important data was stolen from the office of Balochistan Inspector General of Prisons. According to sources, the data was stored in the hard disks of the computer situated inside the office of the IG. The data related to the…
Haley: SCDOR hacking may not have been preventable
Color me stunned. In one breath, Governor Haley says that even with what is known now, there is “no way to say it could have been prevented.” Then we learn that investigators “believe that a hacker tricked someone at the Department of Revenue into opening a file that gave the hacker access to the system.”…