ITPro reports: In a securities filing on Wednesday, Yahoo said some of its employees knew that a “state-sponsored actor” had broken into its network two years ago. This was the attack that led to theft of data such as names, dates of birth and passwords associated with more than 500 (sic) accounts. It’s considered to be one…
Category: Of Note
UK: TLT v SoS: How do you quantify damages for data breaches?
Cynthia O’Donoghue and Chantelle Taylor write: A recent High Court decision, TLT and others v Secretary of State for the Home Office [2016] EWHC 2217 (QB) (“TLT v SoS”), paves the way for the greater recognition of distress in cases of data breaches and the misuse of private information. The victims of a data breach, in this case asylum…
Microsoft Says Russian Hackers Exploited Flaw in Windows
Jay Greene and Robert McMillan report: The hackers believed responsible for breaking into computers at the Democratic National Committee have exploited previously undisclosed flaws in Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system and Adobe Systems Inc.’s Flash software, Microsoft said Tuesday. It is unclear if those hackers, reportedly tied to Russia, used the newly disclosed vulnerabilities to hack into the…
FTC Issues Guidance for Responding to Data Breaches
Caleb Skeath writes: On Tuesday, the FTC issued new guidance for businesses on responding to data breaches, along with an accompanying blog post and video. The data breach response guidance follows the issuance of the FTC’s “Start with Security” data security guidance last year and builds upon recent FTC education and outreach initiatives on data security and cybersecurity issues. The FTC’s data…
Australia’s biggest data breach sees 1.3m records leaked
Allie Coyne reports: More than one million personal and medical records of Australian citizens donating blood to the Red Cross Blood Service have been exposed online in the country’s biggest and most damaging data breach to date. A 1.74 GB file containing 1.28 million donor records going back to 2010, published to a publicly-facing website,…
Department Releases Intake and Charging Policy for Computer Crime Matters
As computers play an ever-greater role in our lives and cybercrime becomes both more commonplace and more devastating, the need for robust criminal enforcement of effective computer crime laws will only become more important. As we’ve said in public remarks last year, we urgently need targeted updates to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act that will help the department…