The highlights of a new GAO report on the IRS: The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) made progress in implementing information security controls; however, weaknesses in the controls limited their effectiveness in protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of financial and sensitive taxpayer data. During fiscal year 2015, IRS continued to devote attention to securing its…
Category: Of Note
PH: Voter database leaked by hackers (updated)
Rappler reports: Shortly after Anonymous PH defaced the Commission on Elections (Comelec) website, another group accessed the data of the poll body’s website, posting it publicly online. In a Facebook post before midnight Monday, March 28, a group calling itself LulzSec Pilipinas wrote, “A great lol to Commission on Elections, here’s your whoooooole database.” This appears…
IRS’s Top 10 Identity Theft Prosecutions
From the IRS, Mar. 21: As part of the continued crackdown on refund fraud and identity theft, the Internal Revenue Service today released the Top 10 Identity Theft Prosecutions for Fiscal Year 2015. These prosecutions are part of the wide-ranging strategy to combat refund fraud and assist taxpayers through detection, prevention and resolving identity theft…
18 million stolen IDs discovered on server / Criminals in China got illegal access
Yomiuri Shimbun reports: The IDs and passwords of about 18 million Internet users have been found on a computer server set up by a Tokyo company, which was found in November to have allegedly provided its relay server to parties in China for illegal access, the Metropolitan Police Department announced Friday. […] The company in…
NY: Focused Technologies Imaging Services to pay more than $3 million for illegal and covert outsourcing of 16 million fingerprint cards to India for data entry
New York State Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott and Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today announced that an Albany-area tech company and its principals will pay more than $3 million in fines for violating State contract security protocols by outsourcing millions of fingerprint records containing sensitive personal information to a company in India for data…
Seven Iranians Working for Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Affiliated Entities Charged for Conducting Coordinated Campaign of Cyber Attacks Against U.S. Financial Sector
A grand jury in the Southern District of New York indicted seven Iranian individuals who were employed by two Iran-based computer companies, ITSecTeam (ITSEC) and Mersad Company (MERSAD), that performed work on behalf of the Iranian Government, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, on computer hacking charges related to their involvement in an extensive campaign…