Casey Newton reports: In late July, Snap’s director of engineering emailed the company’s team in response to an unfolding privacy threat. A government official from Dorset in the United Kingdom had provided Snap with information about a recent attack on the company’s users: a publicly available list, embedded in a phishing website named klkviral.org, that…
Missouri mental health department admits mailing error
AP reports: The Missouri Department of Mental Health is notifying 1,000 people that some personal information might have been mailed to an incorrect address. The department said in a statement Friday that the information released included only the participants’ names, not medical or financial information. Read more on FOX2.
A Hacker Has Wiped a Spyware Company’s Servers—Again
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai reports: Last year, a vigilante hacker broke into the servers of a company that sells spyware to everyday consumers and wiped their servers, deleting photos captured from monitored devices. A year later, the hacker has done it again. Thursday, the hacker said he started wiping some cloud servers that belong to Retina-X Studios,…
UK: Businessman ‘seeking revenge’ turned to computer hacking against company
Elwyn Roberts reports: A businessman turned computer hacker has today been warned that he faces custody. Gavin Paul Prince had previously denied five offences under the Computer Misuse Act. But today he changed his pleas to guilty and Judge David Hale described his actions as seeking revenge against a company. Prince pleaded guilty to unauthorised…
NC: County computers shut down by ransomware
Ben Coley reports: The Davidson County government’s ability to conduct business on computers has been stopped by a software virus known as ransomware, according to County Manager Zeb Hanner. Hanner said officials learned about the issue around 2 a.m. Friday. He noted that all the files are encrypted and that the hackers are asking for…
‘BuckHacker’ Search Engine Lets You Easily Dig Through Exposed Amazon Servers
Joseph Cox reports: Contractors, governments, and telecom giants have all previously left data on exposed Amazon Web Services (AWS) servers, meaning anyone can access them without a username or password. Now, a search engine makes combing through leaky AWS datasets that much easier. Think of it as a barebones Google, but for info that the…