Francesca Fionda reports: Up on the roof of the Vancouver Public Library, privacy researcher Sarah Jamie Lewis connects a small antenna to her laptop to listen in on what appears to be a major ongoing breach of sensitive health data of patients in the Vancouver area. For months, she says, personal information has been sent…
Category: Of Note
Money for Nothing: Ransomware Plagues Local Governments
Dennis Fisher writes: The string of ransomware attacks against state and local government agencies that began to ramp up a couple years ago is continuing unabated, and the attackers in some incidents are becoming quite aggressive with their ransom demands. […] Data collected by security firm Barracuda on ransomware attacks shows that there were 55…
Belarusian police shut down notorious hacking forum
Catalin Cimpanu reports: Belarusian authorities have seized the servers of a notorious hacking forum that served as a meeting place for malware authors, hackers, spammers, botnet operators, and other cyber-criminals, the Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs said in a press release. Named XakFor, the forum launched in 2012 and targeted the Russian-speaking cybercrime scene. It…
FTC Takes Tougher Data Security Stance After LabMD Fight
Sara Merken reports: The Federal Trade Commission is issuing specific data security requirements to companies as part of agency settlements, policing businesses more aggressively than before, attorneys and former staff said. Proposed settlements reached this year with LightYear Dealer Technologies LLC, ClixSense.com, Unixiz Inc, and D-Link Systems Inc. show what the FTC is expecting in…
Author of multiple IoT botnets pleads guilty
Catalin Cimpanu reports: A 21-year-old from Vancouver, Washington pleaded guilty today to creating and operating multiple iterations of DDoS botnets made up of home routers and other networking and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Kenneth Currin Schuchman, known online as Nexus Zeta, rented access to these botnets to others, but he also used the botnets…
Student surprise: malware masked as textbooks and essays
From the Kaspersky Team, this useful alert: We have written on numerous occasions about how easy it is to inadvertently pick up some nasty stuff when you try to download popular TV shows or game cheats. However, cybercriminals do not just limit themselves to entertainment products. You can also stumble upon a virus when looking…