Sadie Gurman and Eric Tucker report: Police officers across the country misuse confidential law enforcement databases to get information on romantic partners, business associates, neighbors, journalists and others for reasons that have nothing to do with daily police work, an Associated Press investigation has found. Criminal-history and driver databases give officers critical information about people…
AU: Privacy watchdog called after Health Department data breach
Noel Towell and Rania Spooner report: Health Minister Sussan Ley has apologised to doctors over the accidental leaking of sensitive Medicare data. The federal privacy watchdog will assess Health Department claims that no patients’ medical information has been released after sensitive information on the Pharmaceutical Benefits and Medicare Benefits schemes was accidentally leaked by the department. […] The department…
NY: 488 affected by data breach in Mastic Beach
News12 reports: The village of Mastic Beach says 488 residents may have had their personal information stolen in a data breach by a former employee pretending to be the chief of police. Mayor Maura Spery says an 18-month audit discovered a former village employee illegally accessed highly personal information from a law enforcement database. “The…
Federal judge cuts Darkode computer hacker a break
Brian Bowling reports: The dark side of the Internet provided Ryan Neil Green with a satisfaction that was missing in his life. Green was a licensed plumber who was more interested in computers than pipes. Using his computer skills, authorities say he conspired with others to help infect at least 77,000 computers, turning them into…
Two more hacks with ransom demands, but is anyone paying? Part 2.
As noted in Part 1, hackers continue to issue ransom demands, but going to the media to put pressure on hacked entities does not seem to have improved their chances of convincing their victims to pay the ransom. In Part 1, I reported on what appears to be a hack of VI Pay, Inc., a payroll…
Two more hacks with ransom demands, but is anyone paying? Part 1.
Over the past few months, DataBreaches.net has reported on a number of hacking incidents where the attackers demanded ransom if the victims did not want to see their data publicly dumped or put up for sale. Some of the incidents involved TheDarkOverlord, who attacked a number of clinics in the healthcare sector. Other incidents involved a self-described…