California helped create the modern Big Data industry, in which tech companies vacuum up and profit off personal information. Now a new law in the state is creating something like a solution to the loss of privacy. From a report: The California Consumer Privacy Act, which took effect Jan. 1, gives people the right to know what large companies know about…
Tag: Data breaches
Feds Seize WeLeakInfo.com For Selling Access To Stolen Data
JustAnotherOldGuy shares a report from PC Magazine: The FBI has shut down a website that offered hackers easy access to 12 billion records stolen in thousands of data breaches. On Thursday, the Justice Department announced it had seized the internet domain to WeLeakInfo.com, a site that was cataloging data taken from more than 10,300 data breaches at various companies and websites…
Amazon Fires More Employees For Leaking Customer Data (Again)
Ring isn’t the only place where Amazon employees have been fired for accessing user data. Amazon itself also fired several employees this week “after they leaked private customer data to an undisclosed third-party,” reports Gizmodo. They note that Amazon also fired more data-leaking employees at the end of 2018. An Amazon spokesperson confirmed the news with multiple outlets after several customers…
How Tech Companies Could Skirt California’s Strict New Privacy Law
Forty million Californians “will soon have sweeping digital-privacy rights stronger than any seen before in the U.S.,” reports the Associated Press, saying the new law taking effect Wednesday “might end up serving as a de facto national standard.” “Early signs of compliance have already started cropping up in the form of ‘Don’t sell my personal information’ links at the bottom of…
CNET Releases ‘2019 Data Breach Hall of Shame’ Dishonoring This Year’s Biggest Data Breaches
schwit1 quotes CNET’s report on their newly-released “2019 Data Breach Hall of Shame.” The biggest recurrent motif among the major data breaches of 2019 wasn’t the black-hooded hacker in a dark room, digging into a screen full of green text. It was a faceless set of executives and security professionals under the fluorescent lights of an office somewhere, frantically dialing their…
A Data Leak Exposed the Personal Info of Over 3,000 Ring Users
The log-in credentials for 3,672 Ring camera owners were compromised this week, exposing log-in emails, passwords, time zones, and the names people give to specific Ring cameras, which are often the same as camera locations, such as “bedroom” or “front door.” BuzzFeed News reports: Using the log-in email and password, an intruder could access a Ring customer’s home address, telephone number,…
IRS Identifies ‘Dozens’ of New Crypto, Cybercriminals
The IRS’s criminal division identified “dozens” of potential cryptocurrency tax evaders or cybercriminals after a meeting this week with tax authorities from four other countries. Bloomberg reports: Officials from the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada and the Netherlands — known as the Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement — shared data, tools and tax enforcement strategies to find new leads in a…
Data Breaches Reported at NetworkSolutions, Register.com, and Web.com
“Top domain name registrars NetworkSolutions.com, Register.com and Web.com are asking customers to reset their passwords after discovering an intrusion in August 2019 in which customer account information was accessed,” reports security researcher Brian Krebs: “On October 16, 2019, Web.com determined that a third-party gained unauthorized access to a limited number of its computer systems in late August 2019, and as a…
Libertarian Accused of Faking 1.5M Net Neutrality Comments Using Data-Breached Addresses
BuzzFeed says they’ve identified two firms which “misappropriated names and personal information as part of a bid to submit more than 1.5 million statements” pretending to oppose net neutrality regulations: The anti-net neutrality comments harvested on behalf of Broadband for America, the industry group that represented telecommunications giants including AT&T, Cox, and Comcast, were uploaded to the FCC website by Media…
Major Breach Found in Biometrics System Used By Banks, UK Police and Defence Firms
The fingerprints of over 1 million people, as well as facial recognition information, unencrypted usernames and passwords, and personal information of employees, was discovered on a publicly accessible database for a company used by the likes of the UK Metropolitan police, defence contractors and banks, The Guardian reported Wednesday. From the report: Suprema is the security company responsible for the web-based…