The databases of four state wildlife sporting licensing sites have been hacked, according to an individual who claims to be the hacker. On Monday, an individual calling him/herself “Mr. High” posted the following on an AlphaBay forum: I just hacked four websites and reported the security holes. Two of these were government websites. All of these…
Category: Of Note
Ashley Madison investigation by Canada and Australia results in compliance agreement
Ashley Madison marketed itself as a “100% discreet service” for people seeking to have affairs — and bolstered that claim with a fabricated security trustmark — but the company behind the website had inadequate security safeguards and policies, an investigation following a massive data breach has concluded. “Privacy breaches are a core risk for any…
Private lives are exposed as WikiLeaks spills its secrets
Raphael Satter and Maggie Michael of AP report: WikiLeaks’ global crusade to expose government secrets is causing collateral damage to the privacy of hundreds of innocent people, including survivors of sexual abuse, sick children and the mentally ill, The Associated Press has found. In the past year alone, the radical transparency group has published medical…
Many hospitals transmit your health records unencrypted
Lucas Mearian reports: About 32% of hospitals and 52% of non-acute providers — such as outpatient clinics, rehabilitation facilities and physicians’ offices — are not encrypting data in transit, according to a new survey. Additionally, only 61% of acute providers and 48% of non-acute providers are encrypting data at rest. Read more about the results…
‘Significant’ security holes in Medicare/Medicaid data
Norman Leahy reports: Medicare and Medicaid have “significant” vulnerabilities in their wireless networks that jeopardize the personal information of millions of citizens, according to a report issued Wednesday. If exploited, the security holes at certain Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data operations could result in “unauthorized access” to personally identifiable information and a possible “disruption…
Companies Fare Worse When the Press Exposes Their Problems Before They Do
An-Sofie Claeys, Verolien Cauberghe, and Mario Pandelaere have been conducting some interesting research on crisis management. Not surprisingly, they found that when entities disclosed first, even subsequent critical reports on their incidents had less impact than if critical reports appeared before the entity disclosed. Their studies were not addressing data breach disclosures per se, but the…