Paul Farrell reports: A darknet trader is illegally selling the Medicare patient details of any Australian on request by “exploiting a vulnerability” in a government system, raising concerns that a health agency may be seriously compromised. An investigation by Guardian Australia can reveal that a darknet vendor on a popular auction site for illegal products…
Category: Non-U.S.
Schools face hefty fines for data breaches under new EU laws
John Dickens reports: Schools face having to free up a teacher to work three days every week on EU data protection issues, say tech experts. From May next year, schools must comply with the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or face financial penalties of up to 4 per cent of their turnover. The new…
The AA Exposed Emails, Credit Card Data, and Didn’t Inform Customers
Joseph Cox reports: Last week rumours of a potentially serious data breach at UK car insurance company the AA circulated in the security research community. In response, the AA’s customer support Twitter account downplayed those fears, and told users that their data remained secure. However, an exposed server contained sensitive information on over 100,000 AA…
Data leak at Dutch Tax Office; Finance Sec. pressing charges
Janene Pieters reports: An investigation into the Tax Authorities‘ practices in handling confidential information revealed ten cases of “unauthorized data exchange”, State Secretary Eric Wiebes of Finances informed parliament in a letter. In one case, the State Secretary pressed charges with the Public Prosecutor, he wrote. The investigation in the Data & Analytics department is…
Minister Acknowledges Sunshine List Privacy Breach
An investigation is underway into an apparent privacy breach that occurred yesterday, as government released its Sunshine List for 2016. The report lists all employees in government and government agencies, boards and commissions who made more than $100,000 dollars last year. 43 employees were granted exemptions from the list, to protect their safety, mental or…
Ukraine points finger at Russian security services in recent cyber attack
Pavel Polityuk reports: Ukraine said on Saturday that Russian security services were involved in a recent cyber attack on the country, with the aim of destroying important data and spreading panic. The SBU, Ukraine’s state security service, said the attack, which started in Ukraine and spread around the world on Tuesday, was by the same…