Jaikumar Vijayan reports: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) can be compelled to disclose details of the data security standards it uses to pursue enforcement action against companies that suffer data breaches, the agency’s chief administrative law judge ruled Thursday. The decision came in response to a motion filed by LabMD, a now-defunct medical laboratory that…
Ex-Insider Sounds Alarm On Hotel And Restaurant Data Security
Last week, I linked to a report from Consumer Reports that contained a somewhat startling allegation by the former director of security compliance for Wyndham: Now, David Durko, former director of Wyndham’s security compliance management, says that many independently owned and operated Wyndham hotels doing business under the Super 8 brand name don’t comply with Payment…
Serious security flaw in OAuth and OpenID discovered
Aloysius Low reports: Following in the steps of the OpenSSL vulnerability Heartbleed, another major flaw has been found in popular open-source security software. This time, the holes have been found in the login tools OAuth and OpenID, used by many websites and tech titans including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and LinkedIn, among others. Wang Jing, a Ph.D student…
Boomerang Tags customers notified of payment card data breach
Boomerang Tags, a company that sells pet tags and collars, has joined the ranks of e-commerce sites compromised by malware. In a letter dated April 25th to the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office, Don Carrick, the owner of BoomerangTags.com, writes that the malware was inserted on or before July 4, 2013, and was first discovered by…
Think ID theft is a problem here? Try protecting one billion people
CIOL has an interesting news report about improving the accuracy of national biometric IDs, as used in India’s Aadhaar program. The Aadhaar program, which I’ve blogged about occasionally over on PogoWasRight.org, collects citizens’ fingerprints or eye scans and the ID cards are used to secure benefits under state programs. So far, about 500 million people’s data…
Georgia governor signs law to drug test some welfare recipients
David Beasley reports: Georgia Governor Nathan Deal signed legislation on Tuesday requiring some applicants for food stamps and welfare benefits to undergo a drug test. Under the bill, testing could be required if authorities have a “reasonable suspicion” of drug use. A person failing the test would temporarily lose benefits, although their children could receive…