Kevin Collier reports: A former National Security Agency contractor accused of the largest security breach in US intelligence history is expected to plead guilty on Thursday, his lawyer told CNN. Harold “Hal” Martin, 54, had worked for 23 years as a contractor for companies that contracted with various intelligence agencies and maintained a government clearance…
Category: Of Note
Proposed settlement agreement between Texas and OCR concerning a 2015 breach
The following analysis in the Texas Senate suggests that OCR and Texas have been negotiating a resolution agreement since Texas first reported this breach in June, 2015. Not only does that seem like a long time for this to be going on, but if you were to look at HHS’s public breach tool to see…
The National Board of Examiners in Optometry to Pay $3.25M Settlement in Data Breach Case
There’s a significant update to some data breach litigation that was revived last June. The American Optometric Association reports: The National Board of Examiners in Optometry (NBEO) will allot $3.25 million in a cash settlement fund to compensate some 61,000 victims of an alleged data breach that gripped the profession in 2016. In a court…
Supreme Court rejects Amazon’s Zappos on data breach lawsuit
Melissa Locker reports: In 2012, 24 million Zappos customers found out that hackers had accessed their personal information. Since then, customers have fought to sue Zappos, Amazon’s online shoe retailer, over the data breach. Now, the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected an appeal, meaning they can move forward with a class-action lawsuit against the company for…
Hackers Hijacked ASUS Software Updates to Install Backdoors on Thousands of Computers
Kim Zetter reports: Researchers at cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab say that ASUS, one of the world’s largest computer makers, was used to unwittingly install a malicious backdoor on thousands of its customers’ computers last year after attackers compromised a server for the company’s live software update tool. The malicious file was signed with legitimate ASUS…
AU: Prize backs UQ physicist’s data security quest
A University of Queensland physicist will use her share of a $1 million prize to advance the development of revolutionary data privacy systems. The Westpac Scholars Trust today announced Dr Jacqui Romero as one of two 2019 Westpac Research Fellows. Dr Romero and health researcher Dr Meru Sheel from Australian National University will share $1…