Nathan Greenhalgh reports: A researcher at the University of Latvia’s Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science has confessed to being the hacker “Neo” who illegally accessed and enabled the publication of the tax records of Latvia’s political and business elite. Ilmārs Poikāns, 31 of Riga, was arrested Tuesday night by police after police confiscated two…
Category: Government Sector
U.S. airport security officers targeted in ID theft
From Reuters, this follow-up on a breach reported previously: A Massachusetts couple has been charged with stealing the identities of dozens of Transportation Security Administration officers, who screen passengers and baggage at U.S. airports. A federal grand jury accused Michael Derring, 48, and Tina White, 47, on Wednesday of conspiracy and aggravated identity theft, alleging…
Personal cellphone data ends up for sale at Mexico flea market
Tracy Wilkinson reports: When the government launched a nationwide campaign to register cellphones, millions of Mexicans refused. And thousands of others registered with a familiar name: Felipe Calderon, the country’s president…. Some said they were convinced that the government would use the information to spy on dissidents or anyone else out of favor. Others said…
IRS Divulges Personal Taxpayer Information
The Internal Revenue Service does not always properly authenticate the identity of taxpayers calling its toll-free assistance lines before providing them with confidential tax account information, according to a new government report. The report, by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, found that taxpayers who call the IRS-toll-free lines are at risk of having…
Hacked US Treasury websites serve visitors malware
Dan Goodin reports: Websites operated by the US Treasury Department are redirecting visitors to websites that attempt to install malware on their PCs, a security researcher warned on Monday. The infection buries an invisible iframe in bep.treas.gov, moneyfactory.gov, and bep.gov that invokes malicious scripts from grepad.com, Roger Thompson, chief research officer of AVG Technologies, told…
UK: Tax records ‘sold to junk mail firms’
Andrew Alderson reports: Experts fear that HM Revenue & Customs has been hit by another security breach, less than three years after it lost the details of 25 million taxpayers. Demands for an investigation come after a woman from Bedfordshire received direct mail using an incorrect surname that only appeared on an HMRC database. One…