Sidney Cohen reports: A former manager in the N.W.T. Justice Department has been ordered to destroy all records he has about his old colleagues, putting an end to a months-long skirmish over employee privacy between him and the territorial government. “[The government] sued me, we settled, I think I’m done … for now,” Donn MacDougall…
Hackers Hijacked ASUS Software Updates to Install Backdoors on Thousands of Computers
Kim Zetter reports: Researchers at cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab say that ASUS, one of the world’s largest computer makers, was used to unwittingly install a malicious backdoor on thousands of its customers’ computers last year after attackers compromised a server for the company’s live software update tool. The malicious file was signed with legitimate ASUS…
AU: Prize backs UQ physicist’s data security quest
A University of Queensland physicist will use her share of a $1 million prize to advance the development of revolutionary data privacy systems. The Westpac Scholars Trust today announced Dr Jacqui Romero as one of two 2019 Westpac Research Fellows. Dr Romero and health researcher Dr Meru Sheel from Australian National University will share $1…
AU: Security researcher pleads guilty in GoGet case
There’s an update to a case previously noted on this site in January, 2018. Rohan Pearce reports: Illawarra-based security researcher Nikola Cubrilovic has pleaded guilty to charges related to unauthorised access to the GoGet service and will be sentenced in May. Cubrilovic was arrested in January 2018 and charged with allegedly accessing a database the car-sharing…
Kanopy privacy breach reveals which movies members have been streaming
On March 22, Simon Cohen reported: Free movie streaming site Kanopy has suffered a significant data leak, according to security researcher Justin Paine. Due to an unprotected web log database, which could be publicly accessed without authentication of any kind, Paine believes that the company has been leaking “roughly 26-40 million log lines per day beginning…
A family tracking app was leaking real-time location data
Zack Whittaker reports: A popular family tracking app was leaking the real-time locations of more than 238,000 users for weeks after the developer left a server exposed without a password. The app, Family Locator, built by Australia-based software house React Apps, allows families to track each other in real-time, such as spouses or parents wanting…