Catalin Cimpanu reports: The Shadow Brokers (TSB) are back, and they’ve released the password for the rest of the hacking tools they claim to have stolen from the NSA last year.TSB is a mysterious group that appeared in the summer of 2016 when they dumped on GitHub and other sites a trove of files they…
Category: Of Note
Leak of diabetic patients’ data highlights risks of giving info to telemarketers
Personal and health information of 918,000 vulnerable seniors was exposed on the Internet for months by a software developer working on a project. No one would have even known about it if the leak hadn’t been found by a guy with “too much time on his hands.” Before you give your personal or health insurance…
Breach of Financial-Aid Tool May Have Compromised Data on 100,000 Taxpayers
Adam Harris reports: Nearly 100,000 taxpayers may have had their personal information compromised by a security breach of an Internal Revenue Service tool that makes it easier to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, the Fafsa, according to the IRS commissioner, John Koskinen, who testified on Thursdaybefore the Senate Finance Committee. The tool,…
Highly confidential psychotherapy records from Maine center listed on the dark web
Update of April 24: On April 21, BHC reported this incident to HHS as impacting 4,229 patients. Original Post: In what may be the worst breach of 2017 so far in terms of highly sensitive and confidential patient records, a behavioral and mental health center in Maine recently learned that its patients’ records – including…
Developing: Justin Shafer arrested, charging with cyberstalking FBI agent’s family
In what has become an increasingly bizarre case, researcher Justin Shafer was arrested Friday evening, detained in Dallas County Jail over the weekend on a “hold” request from the FBI, and then transferred to federal court today, where he was charged with cyberstalking. For the benefit of those who haven’t followed this story from the beginning: Shafer…
FBI Arrests Hacker Who Hacked No One
Kevin Poulsen reports on the arrest of Taylor Huddleston, whose “crime” is that others have used a tool he developed: Huddleston, though, isn’t a hacker. He’s the author of a remote administration tool, or RAT, called NanoCore that happens to be popular with hackers. NanoCore has been linked to intrusions in at least 10 countries,…