WION reports: The small archipelago of the South Pacific Ocean, Vanuatu, was attacked by ransomware on 4 November, Friday and stranded the country for over a week. According to civil servants in the government, they noticed that their official emails started bouncing back from government addresses, this was the first sign when they found that…
Category: Government Sector
PA: Media’s reporting on breach led to new state data breach law
Rick Earle reports: An exclusive Target 11 investigation into a massive data breach last year has led to a new state law meant to protect every citizen of the Commonwealth. Target 11 Investigator Rick Earle broke the story of that data breach last April and now because of his reporting, state lawmakers passed legislation requiring timely notification of…
New South Wales gets first state-based data breach notice scheme
Justin Hendry reports: New South Wales will have Australia’s first mandatory data breach notification scheme for public sector entities in place within a year after state government legislation passed Parliament. The Privacy and Personal Information Protection Amendment Bill underpinning the long-promised regime sailed through the Legislative Council last night without amendment, having passed the Legislative Assembly…
Transparency International blasts Malaysian govt for apathetic reaction to data leaks
MalaysiaKini reports: Transparency International Malaysia (TI-M) has expressed deep concern over the recurring pattern of data leaks from Malaysian government agencies that are empowered and entrusted with personal data. “Media reports last week revealed that data from the voting portal MySPR was publicly on sale on the internet. It was also reported that the caretaker…
US govt: Iranian hackers breached federal agency using Log4Shell exploit
Sergiu Gatlan reports: The FBI and CISA revealed in a joint advisory published today that an unnamed Iranian-backed threat group hacked a Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) organization to deploy XMRig cryptomining malware. The attackers compromised the federal network after hacking into an unpatched VMware Horizon server using an exploit targeting the Log4Shell (CVE-2021-44228) remote code execution…
TX: Dallas Central Appraisal District Systems Still Down a Week After Ransomware Attack
Jacob Vaughn reports: The website, servers and email for the Dallas Central Appraisal District, or DCAD, have been inaccessible after the entire system was attacked by hackers last week. DCAD, which appraises Dallas County properties for tax purposes, announced early last week on social media that it was the victim of a ransomware attack, and it…