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…
Category: Non-U.S.
UK insurer hit with biggest ever data loss fine
John Oates reports: Zurich Insurance must pay an enormous £2.3m fine for losing thousands of British people’s personal data. The fine was imposed not by the Information Commissioner’s Office but by the Financial Services Authority. Zurich Insurance lost 46,000 customer records including some bank details when a tape back-up went missing between two sites in…
New German ID cards easily hacked
The sensitive personal information found on the new German identification cards with data chips scheduled for nationwide introduction this November can be easily hacked, according to testing done by a TV news show. Public broadcaster ARD’s show “Plusminus” teamed up with the hacker organisation the Chaos Computer Club to find out how secure the controversial…
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…
Privacy breach by DU
Shruti D reports: Kirti Dargan got the shock of her life when she Googled her name on Friday. Kirti, a student of Moti Lal Nehru college, found her personal details, including her residential address, email ID, and mobile number listed online, for everyone to see. How did the 19-year-old land in such a pickle? Kirti…
NZ hacker sentenced to community service and reparations
A Brazilian man who hacked into the reservation system of the backpacker Pinewood Lodge where he had stayed in Queenstown was sentenced to community work and reparations. Schiavini had used his computer to access the wireless network at the hostel, where he was staying, and gained further access to the internal reservation system. He managed…