Ernie Suggs reports: The Atlanta Police Department has launched an investigation into how documents containing sensitive material were left in furniture sold during a liquidation sale of merchandise at City Hall East. At least two people have reported that they found personnel documents among the items they purchased. The documents contained Social Security numbers, addresses…
Category: Government Sector
Fine for Edinburgh data snooping policeman
A police officer who admitted snooping through the force computer and obtaining personal data about people has been fined £4,800. Pc Adrian Merron, 46, was due to stand trial on a total of 58 charges. But the Lothian and Borders officer admitted 10 charges and the Crown accepted not guilty pleas to the rest. Six…
AU: Hacker hits Ballarat City Council files
Benjamin Preiss reports: Ballarat City Council’s online network was in meltdown yesterday after it was discovered somebody had broken into the system. One source, who had specific details about the security scare, said a teenager from regional Victoria had gained access to the system. ”Essentially the level of access that’s available is complete and unrestricted…
Russian government email servers hacked
Evgeniya Chaykovskaya reports: On Monday it turned out that the Federal Service of Protection (FSO) is not that good at protecting its own privacy. Yesterday internet forums were bubbling with information about a hack into the FSO internal email system. The attack was aimed at an email server of one of the services’ departments, the…
NZ: Identity Database To Be Opened To Private Businesses
I know, I know…. The Government’s database that is used to confirm identities will be opened to private businesses under a bill introduced to Parliament today. Internal Affairs Minister Nathan Guy says they will be able to use the Data Validation Service to check the identity of customers, but only under strict conditions of security,…
Details of 7,000 Cook County patients may be on stolen hospital laptop
It is troubling that within the span of a few hours, I am having to cover two stolen laptops containing unencrypted patient information as well as Social Security numbers. In this case, Carlos Sadovi reports: A laptop computer containing sensitive information about 7,000 patients of the Cook County Health and Hospitals System was reported stolen…