Kendra Baker reports: State Police are investigating the discovery of ransomware on Sherman School computer servers last month. Ransomware is a software designed to deny access to data or a computer system until a ransom is paid. The malware was found in the school’s computer system Aug. 16, said Jeff Melendez, superintendent-principal of the Sherman…
A huge database of Facebook users’ phone numbers found online
Zack Whittaker reports: Hundreds of millions of phone numbers linked to Facebook accounts have been found online. The exposed server contained over 419 million records over several databases on users across geographies, including 133 million records on U.S.-based Facebook users, 18 million records of users in the U.K., and another with more than 50 million…
FTC Takes Tougher Data Security Stance After LabMD Fight
Sara Merken reports: The Federal Trade Commission is issuing specific data security requirements to companies as part of agency settlements, policing businesses more aggressively than before, attorneys and former staff said. Proposed settlements reached this year with LightYear Dealer Technologies LLC, ClixSense.com, Unixiz Inc, and D-Link Systems Inc. show what the FTC is expecting in…
Author of multiple IoT botnets pleads guilty
Catalin Cimpanu reports: A 21-year-old from Vancouver, Washington pleaded guilty today to creating and operating multiple iterations of DDoS botnets made up of home routers and other networking and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Kenneth Currin Schuchman, known online as Nexus Zeta, rented access to these botnets to others, but he also used the botnets…
NY School Delays Start of Year After Ransomware Attack
From NBC New York, this report on the Monroe-Woodbury School District’s decision: The Orange County school district delayed the first day of the school year until Thursday as they deal with a ransomware attack. It is not clear if the hackers demanded money, as other tri-state school districts have dealt with. Some more details in…
15 Chinese Arrested for Bribing Internet Café Administrators to Mine Crypto
Vincent He reports: Police in Henyang, a city of south-central China’s Hunan Province, has arrested fifteen men suspected of stealing electricity from Internet café to mine cryptocurrencies, according to a report by local media. During the past four months from June 2017 to July 2019, the cryptocurrencies they stole had been sold amounting to over hundred million yuan…