Thomas Brewster reports: Sextortion scammers have become increasingly ruthless, targeting families of teenage victims who took their own lives after sending nude images to highly organized cybercriminal gangs, the FBI has warned. The gangs have demanded that parents or siblings pay to ensure that the sexualized photos of their deceased relatives are not publicly released,…
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State hit by largest sustained Election Day cyberattack warns ‘it’s only going to get worse’
Mark Albert reports: The longest sustained cyberattack against election websites in America on Election Day did not affect any votes but caused disruptions to voters’ efforts to determine their polling locations and access other information, Michael Watson, Mississippi’s secretary of state, said in his first interview about the attack. Watson, the state’s top election administrator,…
IL Champaign County Clerk reports cyber-attacks on servers
Melissa Coyne reports: The Champaign County Clerk’s office is reporting that computer server performance is being impacted by cyber-attacks on the network and servers. The Champaign County Clerk said the website has been the target of repeated D-DOS attacks for the past month, fortunately the reinforced security and response from the Clerk’s IT team has…
Il: Cyber police hacked beyond court order Case 3000
Yonah Jeremy Bob reports: The state prosecution revealed to the defense in Case 3000, the Submarine Affair, on Tuesday that there were at least three instances where a probe by the cyber police unit seized cell phone data beyond what was approved by court order. Defense lawyers called the revelation outrageous and demanded that the state bring charges…
AU: Teenager pleads guilty to blackmailing Optus data breach victims
Freya Noble reports: A Sydney teenager has pleaded guilty to two charges after trying to blackmail people caught up in the Optus data breach. Dennis Su, 19, texted 93 of the telco’s customers, demanding they transfer $2000 to a CBA bank account “or face their personal information being used for financial crimes”. Su downloaded the personal details from a website that…
Scammers use sensitive information trick student loan borrowers
Warn any family or friends who may have outstanding student loans to be wary of scammers contacting them about their loans. WRAL reports: The Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness plan is not only attracting criticism but scammers too. This time-scammers are promising victims far more financial forgiveness than what is possible and using detailed and…