There’s an update to a case first noted on this site in January, 2014. Carla Caldwell reports: An Atlanta man who founded what he said was a charity to provide indigent prisoners with religious and financial assistance instead used his program to steal prisoners’ identities to apply for millions of dollars in fraudulent federal income…
Former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Employee Pleads Guilty to Attempted Spear-Phishing Cyber-Attack on Department of Energy Computers
There’s a follow-up to a case I first noted in May of 2015. Charles Harvey Eccleston, 62, a former employee of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), pleaded guilty yesterday to a federal offense stemming from an attempted e-mail “spear-phishing” attack in January 2015 that targeted dozens of DOE…
Cn: Hackers Steal Account Details of 20.6 Mln Taobao Users
Taobao, the Chinese equivalent of eBay, was reportedly hacked in October 2015, but it doesn’t seem to have made U.S. news. Marbridge Consulting writes: Police in Zhejiang province recently convened a press conference to announce that a group of hackers obtained information pertaining to approximately 99 mln accounts on Alibaba Group’s C2C e-commerce site Taobao….
Lawmakers Roast the Education Dept.’s Top Technology Officer Over Ethics and Data Security
Kelly Field reports: Angry lawmakers hammered the Education Department’s chief information officer, Danny A. Harris, at a hearing Tuesday, accusing him of ethical lapses and failing to secure the agency’s “vulnerable” information systems. “Cybersecurity for the federal government is a matter of quality management and effective leadership, not just tech,” said Rep. Will Hurd, a Texas Republican…
NASA Denies Hackers Hijacked Its Drone
There’s an update to a previously claimed hack involving NASA. Thomas CLaburn reports that NASA is investigating a claimed hack, but denies that its drone was hacked: “Control of our Global Hawk aircraft was not compromised,” said Beutel. “NASA has no evidence to indicate the alleged hacked data are anything other than already publicly available…
Ca: Tax agency staffer gone after taxpayer data leaks to CSIS
Alison Crawford reports: No one’s saying much about what happened and who’s been held accountable for several breaches of taxpayer privacy at the Canada Revenue Agency. The privacy breaches came to light last week in the annual report of the watchdog for CSIS, Canada’s spy agency. The report described how intelligence officers, repeatedly and without a warrant,…