Tag Archive for: people

Russian gang’s hack in Maine affected personal data of 1.3 million people

/in


More than 1 million people who had contact with Maine state agencies have been caught up in a Russian gang’s international cybersecurity breach, potentially exposing their Social Security numbers, dates of birth and other confidential information, state officials said Thursday.

The Department of Administrative and Financial Services is notifying people who may have been affected by what it called a “global cybersecurity incident” that occurred May 28 and May 29 concerning the file transfer tool, MOVEit. The state is among several thousand organizations affected by software vulnerability that allowed cybercriminals to access and download data, the state said in an announcement about the breach. It affected industries such as insurance, finance, education, health and government.

The breach, which affected 1.3 million people, exposed data on more than half of  the state Department of Health and Human Services workers and between 10% and 30% of the employees at the Department of Education. Maine’s population is 1.37 million people.

Other affected agencies are the Office of the Controller, Workers’ Compensation, Bureau of Motor Vehicles, Department of Corrections, Department of Economic and Community Development, Bureau of Human Resources, Department of Professional and Financial Regulation, and the Bureau of Unemployment Compensation.

Once the breach was discovered, the state sought to identify people whose information might have been compromised. The assessment of those affected took months and was recently completed. The state is now notifying individuals using a press release issued nationwide, the U.S. Postal Service and email.

The exploited program, MOVEit, a file-transfer platform made by Progress Software Corp., is widely used by businesses to share files, The Associated Press reported in June. The breach was blamed on a Russian cyber-extortion gang’s hack of a file-transfer program popular with corporations and governments.

The incident in May was specific and limited to Maine’s MOVEit server and did not impact any other state networks or systems, according to information posted on the state’s website.

Maine agencies hold information about…

Source…

People are just realising easy Wi-Fi hack means they’ll never endure a buffering movie again

/in


EXPERTS have revealed a Wi-Fi hack that means households relying on streaming apps won’t have to suffer through buffering movies.

It’s easy and free, but it does require a little forethought.

Streaming apps like Netflix and Prime TV let subscribers download content for watching on-the-go

1

Streaming apps like Netflix and Prime TV let subscribers download content for watching on-the-goCredit: Alamy

According to lecturer James Jin Kang and Paul Haskell-Dowland, associate dean of computing and security at Edith Cowen University, planning your internet usage is the simplest way to avoid buffer.

It’s a tip the pair recommended during the first UK Covid-19 lockdown, when much of the world went online.

So, the trick will become increasingly more useful over the winter months.

This is when members of your household and the neighbours are more likely slink off inside for internet-based entertainment to escape the gloomy weather.

“If multiple people are streaming video at your home, which often requires ten times the daytime demand, a limited internet connection will soon be fully used,” the pair wrote in The Conversation in 2020.

Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data that can be transmitted over an internet connection within a given period.

It is shared by all internet users in a particular area.

And it gets eaten up quickly when more people in the area are at home using Wi-Fi.

To watch a movie pain-free during heightened bandwidth activity, the experts say households should think ahead.

“Try to plan your and family members’ online activities around peak times,” they wrote.

“Outside your home, connectivity is likely to be on a ‘best effort’ plan, which shares a fixed bandwidth with other users.

“In other words, your mobile internet bandwidth is shared with others in your area when they access the internet at the same time.

“A shared bandwidth results in slower individual speeds.

“You can’t control how many people access the internet, but you can manage your own internet activity by downloading large files or content overnight, or outside of peak hours (when there is less traffic).”

Streaming apps like Netflix and Prime TV let subscribers download content for watching on-the-go.

But the feature can also be used to download a movie or the next few episodes of a series…

Source…

Hackers compile database of people of Jewish descent using stolen 23andMe user data

/in


Hackers on the website BreachForums stole user data from genealogy testing company 23andMe, targeting two particular groups: people of Jewish descent and people of Chinese descent.

The resulting hacker database centered on one subset of the Jewish diaspora, Ashkenazi Jews, who came to the Western Hemisphere from Central and Eastern Europe.

23andMe confirmed Friday that data had been compromised, but told technology magazine Wired that its systems had not been breached. 

“While we are continuing to investigate this matter, we believe threat actors were able to access certain accounts in instances where users recycled login credentials – that is, usernames and passwords that were used on 23andMe.com were the same as those used on other websites that have been previously hacked,” 23andMe said in a statement on its website.

…

Source…

Children among 26,000 people impacted by Dallas ransomware attack, city employee says

/in


DALLAS (CBSNewsTexas.com) — On Tuesday, the City of Dallas disclosed that over 26,000 people were affected by a ransomware attack that occurred three months ago.

In early May, hackers accessed names, addresses, medical data and other information through city government servers. 

A group called “Royal” later claimed they encrypted the city’s critical data and threatened to post sensitive information online. Their alleged cyber intrusion also impacted 911 dispatch services for police and fire departments, municipal courts, water utilities and other services.

An image of the ransomware note obtained by J.D. Miles

City of Dallas


As a whole, 26,212 people were affected. And CBS News Texas has since learned that some city employees are already reporting identity theft. What’s more is that some of their children have also had their personal information stolen.

“Unfortunately, it was what I expected,” said Dallas Fire Fighters Association President Jim McDade. “That’s why I took out the identity theft protection back in May.”

McDade—whose personal information was also compromised—said his 1,500 members have been outraged at what they believe has been a sluggish response by the city.

On top of that, he said his 10-year-old son and the children and spouses of other city employees have had their information stolen, too.

Cyber security expert Andrew Sternke said if children have been victimized, it can haunt them into adulthood.

“This information is released out onto the dark web to be sold,” Sternke said. “When that kid turns 18, it’s a free-for-all and that’s another concerning aspect: that it’s not just the adults we have to worry about.”

Those concerns prompted the city to release a statement defending the time it took to report its findings…

Source…