Alex Friedrich reports: About two dozen University of Minnesota faculty members have told administrators they suspect someone has committed tax fraud using their personal information. Two professors say they and other colleagues were unable to file federal taxes online, because the Internal Revenue Service website told them someone had already filed in their names. The…
Category: U.S.
IRS employees can use ‘password’ as a password? No wonder we get hacked
Trevor Timm writes: The public is finally starting to learn what security experts have been warning for years: the US government has no idea what it’s doing when it comes to cybersecurity. Worse, the government’s main “solutions” may leave all our data even more vulnerable to privacy violations and security catastrophes. Read more on The Guardian.
Ex-Newark cop pleads not guilty in alleged data theft scheme
Bill Wichert reports: A former Newark police officer pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to charges he and a city police captain sold personal information they illegally obtained from a database used by law enforcement agencies. Dressed in a light-colored suit and walking with a cane, Dino D’Elia, 49, of Nutley, made his first court appearance since he…
National Archives finds same malware that stole gov’t personnel data
Sean Gallagher reports: In the wake of the discovery of malware on the network of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the National Archives and Records Administration discovered three desktop computers that had been infected with the same remote access malware. The malware was detected by the National Archives’ own intrusion detection system after receiving signature data…
Indiana judge: Judge: Hackers accessed Clarksville social security numbers, other data (Update1)
WHAS-TV reports: Clarksville Town Court Judge James Guilfoyle told WHAS-TV Tuesday that computer hackers accessed records filled with names, birth dates, addresses and social security numbers. Investigators are still trying to figure out the scope of the data breach. Read more on WHAS. Update1: The updated information reads like a ransomware situation, but no ransom…
OPM hack cost estimate is $19M? I think not.
$19 million is the estimated cost of notifications and credit monitoring for affected employees, according to OPM director Katherine Archuleta, It’s not clear to me if she based that figure on the original 4.2M affected figure or a newer 18M estimate. And it doesn’t include notifications or credit monitoring for family members or others whose information was exposed in…