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.”…
Category: Government Sector
Agencywide Message to All NASA Employees: Breach of Personally Identifiable Information
SpaceRef posted a breach notification from NASA, dated today: […] On October 31, 2012, a NASA laptop and official NASA documents issued to a Headquarters employee were stolen from the employee’s locked vehicle. The laptop contained records of sensitive personally identifiable information (PII) for a large number of NASA employees, contractors, and others. Although the…
Chicago election site exposed personal information
John Byrne and Hal Dardick report: Chicago election board officials confirmed Tuesday that sensitive personal information for about 1,200 people was exposed online but denied allegations by a computer security firm that the breach was much broader. The firm, Forensicon, announced it uncovered the problem while researching voting patterns. It alleged that personal information of…
Strategizing the lawsuit against South Carolina
While I was offline, the lawsuit(s?) apparently commenced against South Carolina over their monster data breach. According to Meg Kinnard of Associated Press, however, plaintiffs might receive only a matter of pennies, as the state limits/caps how much a state agency can pay out for a breach, and that cap is $600,000. It may…
Salinas Valley State Prison staff notified of intranet breach
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has been notifying employees of a data breach affecting staff at Salinas Valley State Prison. From their letter describing the intranet exposure: We are writing to you because of an information security incident at Salinas Valley State Prison (SVSP) involving your personal information. On September 26, 2012 it was…
Some updates on the South Carolina Dept. of Revenue breach
Some updates while I was offline due to Hurricane Sandy. Well, I’m still without power, and our street is still impassable and yet another storm is due in two days, but thankfully the library is open and I can keep warm here for a bit each day… From the I-was-waiting-for-this dept.: Security experts blew raspberries…