Jason Miller reports: Tens of thousands of current and former Homeland Security Department employees are at risk of identity theft after officials discovered a vulnerability in the vendor’s system for processing background investigations. All DHS employees working in the headquarters office, for the Customs and Border Protection and for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement components…
Category: Government Sector
NYPD detective charged with hacking
Edwin Vargas, a detective with the New York City Police Department (NYPD) has been arrested on hacking charges. Vargas was arrested this morning outside his residence in Bronxville, New York. Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said, “As alleged, Detective Edwin Vargas paid thousands of dollars for the ability to illegally invade the privacy of his fellow officers and others. He is also alleged…
WINZ: privacy breach ‘major stuff up’
Michael Morrah reports on yet another government data breach in New Zealand: There’s been another government breach of privacy. A Work and Income employee has emailed the private details of 34 beneficiaries to another claimant by mistake. Even WINZ bosses are calling this breach a “major stuff up”. It’s the latest in a series of…
FL: Clearwater officer disciplined for looking up personal information on state database
Peter Jamison reports: Internal investigators say a Clearwater police commander used a law enforcement database more than 100 times during a two-year period for “questionable” purposes, inappropriately looking up personal information about individuals including his ex-wife’s boyfriend, a television news reporter and the wives of other police officers. A summary of the internal investigation, obtained…
FBI, city of Akron investigating hacker attack that compromised identities of 8,000 taxpayers
Jenn Strathman reports: Cyber hackers from Turkey hacked into the city of Akron’s website and replaced city messages with politically-motivated ones on Thursday. Also, nearly 8,000 taxpayers had their personal information stolen including their names, addresses, and social security numbers. I don’t know about you, but I would have lead with the theft of the…
UK: Essex County Council has 27,000 computer hacker attacks in a year
Just for perspective…. Ben Bland reports: More than 25,000 cyber attacks were carried out against Essex County Council in the past year, it has emerged. It is thought those carrying out the attacks were attempting to access the personal details of people living in Essex, which are held by the authority. The council refused to…