Tag Archive for: System

Malware could have taken down St. Lucie County Sheriff records system

/in


Source…

North Tonawanda School District tightens computer system security after state audit

/in


The North Tonawanda City School District has tightened protection of its computer network following an audit of its security procedures, according to a report from the State Comptroller’s Office.

“Most of the issues that were identified during the audit were addressed immediately,” School Superintendent Gregory J. Woytila wrote in response to technology audit for time between July 1, 2022, and April 12, 2023. “These enhancements will be part of the corrective action plan drafted in response to the findings.”

Auditors discovered 246 unnecessary user accounts that were subsequently disabled. Fifty-five of them were non-student accounts assigned to previous district employees, contractors and interns. One of them had been assigned to a substitute teacher who left in 2019.

The audit also found 29 unnecessary shared user accounts which were disabled and learned that no one kept track of the accounts or had a policy to disable them. Auditors said they were told that no policy had been developed because the district had not experienced a data leak or cyberattack in more than 20 years.

The audit additionally advised the district to develop an IT contingency plan so that employees could communicate and continue doing their jobs in case of a disruption.

Source…

Rivers Casino says computer system was hacked and customer data accessed

/in


Computer files containing personal information of gamblers and employees at Rivers Casino in Des Plaines as well as online sportsbook customers may have been accessed by hackers, the casino announced Thursday.

The data breach occurred in August and was discovered Nov. 2, according to a news release from Rivers.

The accessed information included names, phone numbers, email addresses, mailing addresses, birth dates and driver’s license and ID numbers, Rivers said.

Some customers’ and employees’ Social Security numbers, tax ID numbers, bank account numbers and passport numbers also were accessed, according to the release.

Casino officials don’t believe customer passwords or payment card information were affected.

“Upon learning of the incident, Rivers promptly took steps to contain the threat and secure our systems, avoiding any interruption to our operations or in the services we provide to our customers,” Rivers said in the release.

A Rivers spokesman declined to say how many accounts might have been accessed.

No evidence of financial fraud or identity theft resulting from the breach has been discovered, Rivers said. Casino operations weren’t affected by the computer attack.


        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        

 

Rivers has created a response center to provide more information about the breach and customer options. To get help, call (866) 983-3108 on weekdays between 8 a.m. and 5:30 p.m.

People concerned about the hack also can sign up for fraud alerts or security freezes by contacting the major credit bureaus…

Source…

Temsconsu Issues Ethical Hacking Challenge With US$10,000 Reward For Cracking The Security Of Its Excelitte System

/in


Australia-based software engineering firm Temsconsu, the makers of the Excelitte file encryption and database security system, has issued a challenge for ethical hackers and IT experts to crack the security of its Excelitte system and find a hidden line of text. The first person to successfully find this text and notify Temsconsu about it will receive a prize of US$10,000.

The 72-character line of text, composed of letters and numbers, is hidden in either an Excelitte-encrypted file or in the Excelitte database. The person who can retrieve the text and send it to Excelitte’s designated email will receive the US$10,000 prize transferred to their bank account or bitcoin wallet. They also need to answer a simple question, as well as provide details such as the device name, file location, or database type, to prove that they have accessed the secret text.

Temconsu Challenge information

Aside from the US$10,000 reward, Temsconsu will offer an employment opportunity, provided that the successful individual is not part of any criminal watchlist.

“The US$10,000 prize and job offer shows how confident we are in Excelitte’s security,” says Valentine Wats, founder of Temsconsu. “We’ve made it very hard for anyone to expose the data we’ve hidden, but, in the unlikely event someone does, we would like to work with them because that means they know something that we don’t. Every week, we look at everything that happens in the field of cybersecurity, such as hacking incidents and data breaches, and see how we can counter these attacks. We go into the dark web to study how hackers operate from an ethical point of view and reverse-engineer their methods to ensure that Excelitte’s security is watertight.”

According to Wats, the challenge demonstrates the importance of cybersecurity in today’s environment, especially since many large public and private sector organizations have digitized their data and stored it in on the cloud or on devices connected to the internet. Cyber theft and other cybercrimes have been rapidly rising in recent years, with major hacking incidents hitting the news headlines every few weeks. This does not include the thousands of smaller incidents that do not gain media…

Source…