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: Non-U.S.
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…
Email error adds insult to injury
Karin Spaink’s blog summarizes a Dutch data leak: Many people who were duped by DSB Bank going broke, joined the foundation Hypotheekleed (’mortgage pains’). One of them suddenly started to receive e-mails containing the names, data and mortgage information of other members. Apparently, this happened because one of the employees of the foundation entered the…
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…
(update) NZ asks FBI to help nail hackers
Jared Savage reports: The FBI has been asked to help police investigate an international cyber-crime syndicate that hacked into a council-owned carpark to steal credit card details from thousands of customers. The theft of credit card details from payment machines at the Downtown carpark in central Auckland was discovered in November. It had gone undetected…
Ca: More than 300 charges laid in fraud case
Two Edmonton men face over 300 identity theft and fraud charges after police busted a credit card and mail scam. Wilfred Usiayo, 41, and Frank Ejira Otoroh, 39, were both charged with 140 counts of obtaining and possessing identity information, as well as other charges relating to fraudulent activity around a mailbox. […] Officers seized…