Grant Gross reports: Two sister mobile and telecom service providers will pay a combined US$3.5 million after the U.S. Federal Communications Commission found that they were storing customers’ personal data on unprotected servers accessible over the Internet. TerraCom and YourTel America failed to adequately protect the personal information of more than 300,000 customers, the FCC…
Category: Of Note
OPM revises estimate on 2nd breach; new total is 21.5 million affected
OPM has issued an updated statement on its lousy infosecurity two recently detected breaches. It reads, in part: OPM recently discovered two cyber-security incidents that have impacted the data of Federal government employees, contractors, and others: In April 2015, OPM discovered that the personnel data of 4.2 million current and former Federal government employees had…
Ca: Student loan data breach class action lawsuit can expand, Federal Court rules
The Canadian Press reports: The Federal Court of Appeal has ordered the expansion of a class action lawsuit brought by thousands of students whose personal loan data was lost by the federal government. And the lawyer representing the students says that decision could have far-reaching implications for other similar cases. Read more on CBC News….
Hacker group that hit Twitter, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft intensifies attacks
Lucian Constantin reports: The hackers that targeted Twitter, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft developers two years ago have escalated their economic espionage efforts as they seek confidential business information and intellectual property they can profit from. The group, which security researchers from Kaspersky Lab and Symantec call Wild Neutron or Morpho, has broken into the networks…
National Association of Attorneys General: Federal Data Breach Legislation Should Not Preempt States
The National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) sent a letter today to congressional leaders urging them to ensure that federal data breach legislation preserves states’ ability to enforce state laws in order to protect consumers from data breaches and identity theft. Most of the federal bills related to data security and data breach notification pending…
New Hampshire Enacts Breach Notification Requirement for the Department of Education
Scott Koller explains: The state of New Hampshire recently enacted House Bill 322 (“HB 322”), which requires the Department of Education (“DOE”) to implement additional procedures to protect student and teacher data from security breaches. Those procedures now include a breach notification requirement. Effective August 11, 2015, the DOE must develop a detailed security plan…