Meena Harris writes: Data security continues to be a hot issue on Capitol Hill, and just yesterday Attorney General Eric Holder urged Congress to create a “strong, national standard” for quickly reporting data breaches to consumers. Democratic and Republican senators have been busy drafting legislation that would establish national requirements for data security and breach notice. The following bills…
Category: Of Note
University of Maryland revises offer of free credit monitoring to five years, creates cybersecurity task force
The University of Maryland has lengthened the time of free credit monitoring it will offer to the hundreds of thousands of people whose personal information was compromised during a data breach. President Wallace Loh said in a statement posted Tuesday on the university’s website that those affected will be offered five years of free credit…
Indiana University notifying 146,000 current & former students that details were accessed by webcrawlers over 11-month period
Indiana University issued the following statement today: Indiana University notified the Indiana attorney general’s office today of the potential exposure of personal data for some students and recent graduates. The data potentially at risk for disclosure includes names, addresses and Social Security numbers for approximately 146,000 students and recent graduates across seven IU campuses who…
Asylum seeker data breach: no decision yet on whether to inform those affected
Daniel Hurst reports: Australia’s top immigration bureaucrat has told a Senate committee he is yet to make a call on whether asylum seekers will be told that his department released their confidential personal details on its website. Martin Bowles, secretary of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, characterised the data breach as “regrettable” but…
IRS Criminal Investigation issues annual report
The Internal Revenue Service today announced the release of its IRS Criminal Investigation (CI) Annual Report for fiscal year 2013, reflecting significant increases in enforcement actions against tax criminals and a robust rise in convictions, including identity theft. CI investigates potential criminal violations of the Internal Revenue Code and related financial crimes in a manner…
Ethical hacking organization hacked, website defaced with Edward Snowden’s passport
Rich McCormick reports: The EC-Council, a US professional organization that offers a respected certification in ethical hacking, was itself hacked this weekend. Passport and photo ID details of more than 60,000 security professionals who have obtained or applied for the EC-Council’s Certified Ethical Hacker certification are at risk after the breach, many of whom work in…