Sophia Yang reports: Following media reports of a massive data breach in Taiwan, the Kuomintang legislative caucus on Wednesday (Dec. 7) urged the government to act swiftly in collaboration with foreign governments involved to remove the data from the dark web. In October, media reported a user of “BreachedForums” named “OKE” was selling the private…
Category: Government Sector
Turkish journalist faces 12 years in prison for announcing personal data leak
Turkish Minute reports: Turkish prosecutors are seeking a prison sentence of 12 years for journalist İbrahim Haskoloğlu, who was briefly detained in April after announcing that hackers had stolen personal information from government websites, the journalist announced on social media, the Stockholm Center for Freedom reported. In his tweets in April, Haskoloğlu said a group of…
NZ: Ransomware attacks: Privacy Commissioner plans investigation as Justice, Health hit
Chris Keall reports: Privacy Commissioner Michael Webster is planning an investigation after Wellington-based IT provider Mercury IT was hit by a ransomware attack – potentially compromising sensitive data it hosts for multiple clients, including health insurer Accuro, BusinessNZ, the NZ National Nurses Association and the Ministry of Justice, with 15,000 Coroners Court files taken out. The…
VA admits to improperly disclosing COVID-19 vaccine data for 500,000 staff
Nihal Krishan reports: The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has admitted that it failed to adequately protect COVID-19 vaccination status data for about 500,000 of its employees. Following an internal investigation by the VA’s Data Breach Response Service, the agency removed a spreadsheet containing personal details including vaccination status, according to a notice sent to the agency’s…
Florida state tax website bug exposed filers’ data
Zack Whittaker reports: A security flaw on the Florida Department of Revenue website exposed at least hundreds of taxpayers’ Social Security numbers and bank account numbers, a security researcher found. Kamran Mohsin said the security flaw — now fixed — allowed him, or anyone else who was logged in to the state’s business tax registration website,…
Bits ‘n Pieces (Trozos y Piezas)
UY: Ministry of Transport and Public Works victim of ransomware attack Uruguay’s Ministry of Transport and Public Works (MTOP) was hit by a ransomware attack on October 17. On November 9, MTOP reported that it was back to normal after the ransomware attack, adding that it had recovered critical information and restored the affected services….