Garrett M. Graff reports: The three college-age defendants behind the creation of the Mirai botnet—an online tool that wreaked destruction across the internet in the fall of 2016 with unprecedentedly powerful distributed denial of service attacks—will stand in an Alaska courtroom Tuesday and ask for a novel ruling from a federal judge: They hope to be…
Category: Of Note
DealerBuilt Settles with New Jersey AG Over Data Breach
Hunton Andrews Kurth reports: On September 7, 2018, the New Jersey Attorney General announced a settlement with data management software developer Lightyear Dealer Technologies, LLC, doing business as DealerBuilt, resolving an investigation by the state Division of Consumer Affairs into a data breach that exposed the personal information of car dealership customers in New Jersey…
Another security breach at Grindr reveals users’ exact location
Tom Capon reports: Grindr’s security issues are once again in the spotlight as a third party app pinpointed users’ exact location. Despite constant reassurances from the app about the difficulties of exploiting their location technology, the latest security breach revealed how malicious parties can locate users. Discovered by blog Queer Europe, they used a third-party…
In a Data-Breach Lawsuit, Can Plaintiffs Use a Company’s Data Breach Notice to Establish Standing?
Alex M. Pearce of Ellis & Winters LLP writes: ….. When a business suffers a data breach, state laws require the business to send a notice to affected individuals. Those laws typically prescribe the contents of the required notice—sometimes in detail. North Carolina’s data breach notification statute, for instance, requires the notice to include “[a]dvice…
After one-third of North Dakota schools get hacked by foreign entities, state superintendent addresses attack with cyber security standards
Austin Howard reports: The North Dakota Information Technology Department said there were malware attacks on one-third of North Dakota schools in February 2018. The hackers behind the attacks were from different international locations including North Korea and the malware was downloaded from multiple access points. According to ITD’s Director of Security Sean Wiese, hackers used…
New Federal Law Makes Credit Freezes Free for All Consumers
From EPIC.org: Starting next week, consumers will be able to “freeze” their credit reports at no cost. A credit freeze restricts public access to a consumer’s credit report, making it much more difficult for identity thieves to open fraudulent accounts. Previously state laws allowed credit bureaus to charge consumers $2 to $10 place or lift…