The following is from a machine translation of an article by Luis F. Duran that appeared at El Mundo on October 18: Last Thursday, French Justice released two Spanish hackers, aged 26 and 28, arrested last summer on charges of attacking 26 French companies from which they supposedly demanded million-dollar ransoms. After the investigation and the…
Category: Non-U.S.
Police employee arrested for computer trespassing and violation of official secrecy
Politie reports an alleged insider breach in the police department itself: An employee of the Amsterdam police unit was arrested this week on suspicion of computer trespassing and violation of official secrecy. The investigation into the employee is conducted by the Safety, Integrity and Complaints department (VIK) of the Amsterdam unit under the direction of…
Equifax’s U.K. Arm Fined Over 2017 Data Breach
Margot Patrick reports: Equifax’s (EFX) U.K. arm was fined around $13.6 million Friday for failing to protect the data of millions of British customers in a 2017 hack of the credit-reporting company. The British arm outsourced customer-data processing to the U.S., and then failed to manage or monitor data security, the Financial Conduct Authority said. Read…
Queensland agencies to face mandatory data breach reporting
Judy Skatssoon reports: Queensland is set to join NSW as the only other Australian state to introduce a mandatory data breach notification scheme. The state government says the Information Privacy and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023, introduced on October 12, contains reforms aimed at improving the accountability of government agencies and boosting privacy protections in…
Philippine Statistics Authority cyberattack being probed
Ashley Erika O. Jose reports: The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) confirmed on Wednesday that it is now investigating another cyberattack, this time on the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). Separately, the National Privacy Commission (NPC) said it received a breach notification from the PSA on Tuesday. Based on its initial assessment, the PSA…
Justice department wants to fight R5 million fine over ransomware attack in court
Myles Illidge reports: The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (DoJ&CD) is taking the Information Regulator to court to appeal the R5 million fine the agency slapped it with after falling prey to a ransomware attack in 2021, TechCentral reports. Departmental spokesperson Steven Mahlangu reportedly said the court application was issued on 29 September 2023…