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…
Category: Government Sector
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….
Albanian IT Staff Charged With Negligence Over Cyberattack
AP reports: Albanian prosecutors on Wednesday asked for the house arrest of five public employees they blame for not protecting the country from a cyberattack by alleged Iranian hackers. Prosecutors said the five IT officials of the public administration department had failed to check the security of the system and update it with the most recent…
Vanuatu officials turn to phone books and typewriters, one month after cyber attack
At the end of October, the tiny South Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu was hit by a cyberattack with devastating consequences. They officially acknowledged the incident as an attack on November 5. Now, almost a month later, they are still struggling to recover. Christopher Cottrell reports: One month after a cyber-attack brought down government servers and…