Years ago, I had hoped more states would require breach notifications to central offices and that states would then share those reports with the public, much as New Hampshire had done. But things haven’t really become more transparent. Maryland and California remain positive examples of transparency, but New Hampshire’s site, while still available, has lost…
Detroit officials warn data breach exposed city workers, residents
Charles E. Ramirez reports: The city is offering free credit monitoring to its employees in the wake of a data breach in its email system, officials said Thursday. The city’s Chief Information Officer Beth Niblock said the breach happened Jan. 16 and fewer than 10 email accounts were affected. Some of the accounts contained sensitive information and the…
Greece says no data stolen in Turkish hacker attacks on state bodies
Ahval reports: An investigation into Turkish hackers’ attacks last week on websites of Greek state bodies indicated that no data were stolen, Greek daily Kathimerini reported on Wednesday. […] The attack claimed by a Turkish hacker group named the Anka Neferler Tim (Phoenix’s Helmets) made the institutions’ websites unavailable to users, Kathimerini said. Read more…
BitPyLock Ransomware Now Joins the Ranks of Those Threatening to Publish Stolen Data
As I anticipated, it is only getting worse. Now Lawrence Abrams reports: A new ransomware called BitPyLock has quickly gone from targeting individual workstations to trying to compromise networks and stealing files before encrypting devices. BitPyLock was first discovered by MalwareHunterTeam on January 9th, 2020 and has since seen a trickle of new victims daily. What is…
Bipartisan bill in Congress proposes cybersecurity coordinators for every state
Fahmida Y. Rashid writes: A bipartisan group of Senators are interested in establishing a cybersecurity leader for each state in order to increase the states’ abilities to respond to cyberattacks. Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH), the lead sponsor of the bill, highlighted the wave of ransomware attacks which have crippled cities and government entities in recent…
No criminal charges filed in Revenu Québec data leak
Paul Cherry reports: No criminal charges will be filed in the investigation into how personal information pertaining to more than 23,000 Revenu Québec employees was transferred out of the provincial government agency’s data banks last year. Last summer, a 39-year-old Revenu Québec employee and her husband were arrested by the Sûreté du Québec in Quebec…