Hackers with access to a person’s genome might find out if that genome is in an international network of disease databases. Sharing genomic information among researchers is critical to the advance of biomedical research. Yet genomic data contains identifiable information and, in the wrong hands, poses a risk to individual privacy. If someone had access…
Category: Of Note
Bank of England and US authorities to simulate cyber-attack
Nothing could possibly go wrong, right? Tim Wallace reports: The biggest banks in the UK and US will face a simulated major cyber-attack from the Bank of England and its US counterparts this month, as officials probe the industry’s ability to withstand assaults from hackers looking to steal data or cripple the financial sector. The…
Our veterans deserve better infosecurity of their information
When News3 in Madison, Wisconsin started digging into a breach involving 637 veterans’ Social Security numbers, what they found should have everyone asking the VA some hard questions. Adam Schrager reports: The Social Security numbers of Wisconsin veterans are being sent via email without encryption despite numerous federal laws and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs…
Comcast Agrees to Pay $33 Million in Data Breach Settlement for Leaking Thousands of Unlisted Numbers
Kelly Vargas writes: On September 17, 2015, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved a $33 million settlement between Comcast, CPUC staff, and the California Attorney General’s office (along with public interest groups TURN and the Greenlining Institute), related to a Comcast data breach that resulted in the personal information (name, address and telephone number) of nearly 75,000 Comcast…
CORRECTION and removal of article
Yesterday, this site posted a news report by Jon Seidel of the Chicago Sun-Times that reported that NullCrew member Timothy French had been taken into custody to await trial for allegedly violating the terms of his bond. The news report seemed identical to another report months earlier, but the federal court docket showed that there…
Lifelock reaches tentative settlement with FTC to the tune of almost $100 million
Remember when FTC went after Lifelock for failure to comply with an earlier consent order? And remember when I quoted Lifelock’s 10-Q SEC filing that mentioned the issue but reported: As a result of those discussions, we have accrued $20,000 as of December 31, 2014 for a possible settlement with the FTC. The ultimate resolution of the matter could result…