CRI English reports that Chinese law enforcement has broken up 468 gangs and arrested over 1,200 people, according to their Ministry of Public Security. A total of 1,327 cases of personal information trafficking were solved and more than 700 million pieces of personal information were seized by police from more than 20 public security organs…
Former employee of Resources for Human Development sentenced for stealing mental health residents' information for tax refund fraud scheme
Another update on a breach previously mentioned on this blog. From a July 24 press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland: U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake sentenced Derrick Elrod, age 35, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to three years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for bank fraud…
Privacy watchdog fines Greece’s Finance Ministry for data protection failure
Associated Press reports that Greece’s Finance Ministry has been fined €150,000 ($200,000) by the privacy watchdog for allegedly failing to protect data on millions of taxpayers. The data ended up in the hands of private companies, or in some cases, in the hands of data thieves. The Data Protection Authority said Friday the ministry hadn’t taken…
Former Georgia Tax Preparers Sentenced for Tax Refund Fraud
The Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced that former professional tax return preparers Greene Wylie Sheppard, Sabrina Johnson-Lavant and Chandra Henderson were sentenced this month to serve 56 months, 18 months, and 8 months in prison, respectively, for conspiring to defraud the United States by filing false tax returns in order to…
WA: Months after they learned of Vendini breach, Edmonds Center for the Arts first notifying customers
Notification delayed: In an email sent to more than 13,000 customers Monday, the Edmonds Center for the Arts warned that hackers earlier this spring had broken into the computer databases of Vendini, Inc, the ECA’s online ticket sales agent — raising the possibility that individual credit card information might have been compromised. ECA Executive Director…
Fraud Linked to Harbor Freight Tools Attack is Spreading
Tracy Kitten reports: A cyber-attack that hit Harbor Freight Tools and likely exposed card data processed at all 400 of its retail tool stores could rank among one of the biggest retail breaches this year, one card issuer says. In fact, the issuer, who asked to remain anonymous, says compromised cards linked to the Harbor Freight attack…