Hacktivism raises all kinds of ethical issues. In an unusual move, hackers responsible for the hack of the Salt Lake City Police Department have deleted their copies of some of the files they had acquired from the PD’s web site. In announcing the hack on Tuesday, the hackers known as Kahuna and CabinCr3w indicated that…
Category: Of Note
NYSEG and RG&E Notify Customers of Unauthorized Access to Customer Data
From NYSEG: New York State Electric & Gas (NYSEG) and Rochester Gas and Electric (RG&E), subsidiaries of Iberdrola USA, today began sending precautionary notifications to customers advising them of unauthorized access to customer data. This situation involves an employee at an independent software development consulting firm (contracted by NYSEG and RG&E) who allowed unauthorized access…
(Follow-up) Agreement Reached With Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. Over Release of Some Customers’ Personally Identifiable Information
Attorney General George Jepsen and Consumer Protection Commissioner William Rubenstein have reached an agreement with Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. to provide additional protections to the current and former customers whose personal information was made public. Information of current and former MetLife customers was part of a spreadsheet posted to the Internet by an employee of…
Zappos hacked; notifying 24+ million Zappos.com and 6pm.com customers of breach and to reset passwords
Online retailer Zappos has been hacked. Its CEO, Tony Hsieh, posted a copy of an email notification explaining the breach to all employees with a copy of the email notification sent to customers: The following email was sent to our employees today: Subject: Important – Security Dear Zappos Employees – Please set aside 20 minutes to carefully…
Commentary: Morally bankrupt hacktivism
One of the blogs that I check every day for news on data breaches is an incredible resource called cyberwarnews.info. Lee’s blog has been the source of a number of recent entries in DataLossDB. Today, Lee posted a commentary on his blog where he writes, in part: So to all the hackers, CWN continues to ask for…
UK: Crossing a line that should not be crossed: 8 officers resign over misuse of police database
Russell Myers reports: Eight police staff have lost their jobs after illegally accessing the confidential records of dozens of people on the Police National Computer. Of the eight, one police officer and one community support officer (PCSO) are facing criminal charges after an investigation by Essex Police found them guilty of gross misconduct. Another PCSO…