Niall O’Connor reports on a major case of social engineering: Sensitive personal data, including addresses and job details, was handed over by the Department of Social Protection after just one phone call from private investigators pretending to be State officials. The underhand tactics used to extract confidential information from a leading State agency is revealed…
Category: Other
PA: Investigation urged of security breach in Fayette County computer system
Mary Pickels reports: Fayette County Commissioner Angela Zimmerlink said on Tuesday that further investigation is needed into an alleged security breach caused when Commissioner Al Ambrosini directed IT department head Kebin Holbert to increase access to the county computer system for a financial consultant working for the county. Referring to a letter from acting Controller…
Ca: Henry v Bell Mobility: Another Federal Court case shows PIPEDA damages are hardly worth pursuing absent evidence of actual harm
Canadian privacy lawyer David T.S. Fraser writes: The Federal Court, in the recently issued decision in Henry v Bell Mobility 2014 FC 555 (not yet on CanLII or the Court’s site) has awarded a very modest sum of damages to a customer of Bell Mobility whose phone account was accessed by an impostor. At the hearing…
Iowa, North Carolina join states studying Experian breach – Reuters
Jim Finkle and Karen Freifeld of Reuters also have more on the Court Ventures/U.S. Info Search that has put millions of consumers at risk of identity theft or financial fraud: Iowa and North Carolina said they are looking into a breach involving a subsidiary of Experian Plc that exposed some 200 million social security numbers,…
UK: ICO decides against probe of Santander email spam scammers
John Leyden reports: Santander customers say they are continuing to be deluged with Trojans and other junk to email addresses exclusively used with the bank months after the problem first surfaced back in November. At least two Reg readers have put in complaints to the Information Commissioner’s Office. But the data privacy watchdog told us that it has “insufficient…
Kent Police fined £100,000 after interview tapes abandoned at former station
The Information Commissioner’s Office has served a monetary penalty of £100,000 on Kent Police after confidential information, including copies of police interview tapes, was left in the basement of a former police station. The highly sensitive information included records relating back to the 1980s, thought to have been left at the site when the building was vacated…