Bob Brewin reports on a breach that I don’t think we knew about here: A laptop belonging to a contractor working for the Veterans Affairs Department was stolen earlier this year and the personal data on hundreds of veterans stored on the computer was not encrypted, a violation of a VA information technology policy, said…
Category: Government Sector
Stolen Laptop Exposes Personal Data on 207,000 Army Reservists
Brian Krebs reports: A laptop stolen from a government contractor last month contained names, addresses and Social Security numbers of more than 207,000 U.S. Army reservists, Krebsonsecurity.com has learned. The U.S. Army Reserve Command began alerting affected reservists on May 7 via e-mail. Col. Jonathan Dahms, chief public affairs for the Army Reserve, said the…
Latvian hacker “Neo” found
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…
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…