Jonathan Greig reports: One of the top cybersecurity officials in the U.S. said Wednesday that he was especially concerned with Chinese infiltration of the country’s critical infrastructure, as well as software supply chain risks and the continued expansion of ransomware. Although there have been several recent disclosures about Beijing-linked hacking campaigns, National Cyber Director Harry…
Internet History Hacked, Wayback Machine Down—31 Million Passwords Stolen
Davey Winder reports: Hackers have compromised the Internet’s past, the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, stealing 31 million passwords and launching a massive Distributed Denial of Service attack in the process. It is unclear if the two security incidents, the compromise of the Internet Archive’s authentication database containing registered member details, including hashed passwords, and the…
National Public Data files for bankruptcy, admits ‘hundreds of millions’ potentially affected
Iain Thomson reports: The Florida business behind data brokerage National Public Data has filed for bankruptcy, admitting “hundreds of millions” of people were potentially affected in one of the largest information leaks of the year. In June, the hacking group USDoD put a 277.1 GB file of data online that contained information on about 2.9 billion…
Privacy and Security of Student Data (Follow-Up of Audit of NY State Education Department)
Issued Date: September 26, 2024 Agency/Authority: State Education Department Full Report (.pdf) Objective To determine the extent of implementation of the three recommendations included in our initial audit report, Privacy and Security of Student Data (Report 2021-S-29). About the Program The State Education Department (SED) is part of the University of the State of New York, one of…
Attorney General Tong Co-Leads $52 Million Multistate Settlement with Marriott for Data Breach of Starwood Guest Reservation Database
The following enforcement action was related to FTC action, also announced today, but is a separate settlement with states. The following press release is from Connecticut’s Attorney General: (Hartford, CT) – Attorney General Tong announced today that a coalition of 50 attorneys general, co-led by Connecticut, has reached a settlement with Marriott International, Inc. as…
FTC Takes Action Against Marriott and Starwood Over Multiple Data Breaches
From the Federal Trade Commission: The Federal Trade Commission will require Marriott International, Inc. and its subsidiary Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide LLC to implement a robust information security program to settle charges that the companies’ failure to implement reasonable data security led to three large data breaches from 2014 to 2020 impacting more than 344…