Daniel R. Stoller reports: Yahoo! Inc. will be defending multidistrict consumer data breach claims in its home territory in the federal trial court based in Silicon Valley ( In re Yahoo Customer Data Sec. Breach Litig. , J.P.M.L., No. No, 2752, transfer order 12/7/16 ). The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation assigned Judge Lucy Koh of…
PwC sends ‘cease and desist’ letters to researchers who found critical flaw
Zack Whittaker reports: A security research firm has released details of a “critical” flaw in a security tool, despite being threatened with legal threats. Munich-based ESNC published a security advisory last week detailing how a remotely exploitable bug in a security tool, developed by auditing and tax giant PwC, could allow an attacker to gain unauthorized access…
Hacker Claims Theft of Thousands of Passport Numbers from Russian Consulate
Joseph Cox reports: A hacker claims to have stolen thousands of passport numbers and other pieces of personal information from the website of a Russian consular department. The hacker, who calls himself Kapustkiy, plans to publish around a thousand records out of the 30,000 or so he allegedly obtained. The apparent target was ambru.nl, the…
CA: University student indicted for DDoS attacks on Bay area online chat service (updated)
SAN FRANCISCO – Sean Krishanmakoto Sharma, a graduate student in computer science, has been indicted for transmitting a program, information, code, or command causing damage to a protected computer announced United States Attorney Brian J. Stretch and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agent in Charge John F. Bennett. The indictment, filed December 1, 2016,…
AR: Carroll County pays ransomware demand
Adam Roberts reports: The Carroll County Sheriff’s Office paid the equivalent of $2,400 in ransom money to hackers, the county announced at a press conference Monday afternoon. […] The files in question were all decrypted after the ransom was paid, the sheriff’s office said. Read more on 40/29 TV.
UK: Operation Vulcanalia targets users of netspoof website attack tool
From an NCA press release today: Twelve people have been arrested as part of a National Crime Agency operation targeting customers of website crippling software which can cost as little as £4. Netspoof stresser was a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) programme that disabled web servers and websites by flooding them with massive amounts of…