Alanna Durkin Richer repeorts: Some K-12 public schools are racing to improve protection against the threat of online attacks, but lax cybersecurity means thousands of others are vulnerable to ransomware gangs that can steal confidential data and disrupt operations. Since a White House conference in August on ransomware threats, dozens of school districts have signed up for free…
Poloniex confirms hackers identity, offers $10M white hat reward to return stolen funds
Assad Jafri reports: Poloniex has officially identified the hacker responsible for stealing $120 million from the exchange on Nov. 10 and offered a $10 million white reward if the funds are returned by Nov. 25, according to on-chain data shared by blockchain security firm PeckShield. Justin Sun, Poloniex’s majority shareholder, sent blockchain messages on the Ethereum network to addresses involved…
Canadian Government Announces Data Breach, Urges Public Service Employees to Take Action
Stacey Scott reports: The federal government has issued a warning to current and former public service employees, as well as members of the RCMP and Canadian Armed Forces, regarding a recent data breach that took place on October 19th. Officials have identified two companies, Brookfield Global Relocation Services (BGRS) and SIRVA Worldwide Relocation & Moving…
A Hacker Faked His Own Death–Then Claimed To Have Sold Marriott Customer Data To Russians, FBI Says
Thomas Brewster reports: A hacker told the FBI earlier this year that he sold access to the personal data of Marriott hotel customers on a Russian forum, according to a search warrant obtained by Forbes. He also hacked into a number of U.S. state death certificate registration agencies in an effort to fake his own demise,…
UK: Former NHS secretary found guilty of illegally accessing medical records
A reminder of the insider threat: A former NHS employee has been found guilty and fined for illegally accessing the medical records of over 150 people. Loretta Alborghetti, from Redditch, worked as a medical secretary within the Ophthalmology department at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust when she illegally accessed the records. In June 2019, a…
Does claiming you were hacked when you had really just screwed up violate the FTC Act?
On November 12, DataBreaches published an OpEd, If entities continue to obfuscate and lie, it’s time to mandate more transparency in breach disclosures. Today, we post another example of why we need to legislate and enforce data breach notification laws that prohibit deceptive statements and mandate more disclosure when data has been leaked. This week,…