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U.S. Charges 4 Chinese Military Hackers Over Equifax Data Breach

U.S. Charges 4 Chinese Military Hackers Over Equifax Data Breach
Feb 10, 2020
The United States Department of Justice today announced charges against 4 Chinese military hackers who were allegedly behind the Equifax data breach that exposed the personal and financial data of nearly 150 million Americans. In a joint press conference held today with the Attorney General William Barr and FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich, the DoJ officials labeled the state-sponsored hacking campaign as the largest hacking case ever uncovered of this type. The four accused, Wu Zhiyong (吴志勇), Wang Qian (王乾), Xu Ke (许可) and Liu Lei (刘磊), have also been indicted for their involvement in hacking and stealing trade secrets, intellectual property and confidential information from several other U.S. businesses in recent years. In September 2017, credit reporting agency Equifax disclosed it had become a victim of a massive cyberattack that left highly sensitive data of nearly half of the U.S. population in the hands of hackers. As The Hacker News reported earlier, hackers compr

Equifax to Pay up to $700 Million in 2017 Data Breach Settlement

Equifax to Pay up to $700 Million in 2017 Data Breach Settlement
Jul 23, 2019
Equifax, one of the three largest credit-reporting firms in the United States, has to pay up to $700 million in fines to settle a series of state and federal investigations into the massive 2017 data breach that exposed the personal and financial data of nearly 150 million Americans—that's almost half the country. According to an official announcement by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) today, Equifax has agreed to pay at least $575 million in fines, but this penalty could rise to up to $700 million depending on the amount of compensation people claim. Up to $425 million of the fines will go to a fund that will provide credit monitoring services to affected customers and compensate anyone who bought such services from the company and paid other related expenses as a result of the breach . Rest $175 million and $100 million will go to civil penalties across 50 states and to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), respectively. Besides the penalty, the co

Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future

Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future
Mar 21, 2024Operational Technology / SCADA Security
When you read reports about cyber-attacks affecting operational technology (OT), it's easy to get caught up in the hype and assume every single one is sophisticated. But are OT environments all over the world really besieged by a constant barrage of complex cyber-attacks? Answering that would require breaking down the different types of OT cyber-attacks and then looking back on all the historical attacks to see how those types compare.  The Types of OT Cyber-Attacks Over the past few decades, there has been a growing awareness of the need for improved cybersecurity practices in IT's lesser-known counterpart, OT. In fact, the lines of what constitutes a cyber-attack on OT have never been well defined, and if anything, they have further blurred over time. Therefore, we'd like to begin this post with a discussion around the ways in which cyber-attacks can either target or just simply impact OT, and why it might be important for us to make the distinction going forward. Figure 1 The Pu

UK Regulator Fines Equifax £500,000 Over 2017 Data Breach

UK Regulator Fines Equifax £500,000 Over 2017 Data Breach
Sep 20, 2018
Atlanta-based consumer credit reporting agency Equifax has been issued a £500,000 fine by the UK's privacy watchdog for its last year's massive data breach that exposed personal and financial data of hundreds of millions of its customers. Yes, £500,000—that's the maximum fine allowed by the UK's Data Protection Act 1998, though the penalty is apparently a small figure for a $16 billion company. In July this year, the UK's data protection watchdog issued the maximum allowed fine of £500,000 on Facebook over the Cambridge Analytica scandal , saying the social media giant Facebook failed to prevent its citizens' data from falling into the wrong hands. Flashback: The Equifax Data Breach 2017 Equifax suffered a massive data breach last year between mid-May and the end of July, exposing highly sensitive data of as many as 145 million people globally. The stolen information included victims' names, dates of birth, phone numbers, driver's licens

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It's 3 Billion! Yes, Every Single Yahoo Account Was Hacked In 2013 Data Breach

It's 3 Billion! Yes, Every Single Yahoo Account Was Hacked In 2013 Data Breach
Oct 04, 2017
The largest known hack of user data in the history just got tripled in size. Yahoo, the internet company that's acquired by Verizon this year, now believes the total number of accounts compromised in the August 2013 data breach, which was disclosed in December last year, was not 1 billion—it's 3 Billion . Yes, the record-breaking Yahoo data breach affected every user on its service at the time. Late last year, Yahoo revealed the company had suffered a massive data breach in August 2013, which affected 1 billion user accounts . The 2013 hack exposed user account information, including names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of births, hashed passwords (using MD5), and, in some cases, "encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers," Yahoo said in 2016. At that time, Yahoo did confirm that hackers did not obtain bank account details or credit card information tied to the Yahoo accounts. The data breach was attributed to state-sponsored

Whoops, Turns Out 2.5 Million More Americans Were Affected By Equifax Breach

Whoops, Turns Out 2.5 Million More Americans Were Affected By Equifax Breach
Oct 03, 2017
Equifax data breach was bigger than initially reported, exposing highly sensitive information of more Americans than previously revealed. Credit rating agency Equifax says an additional 2.5 million U.S. consumers were also impacted by the massive data breach the company disclosed last month, bringing the total possible victims to 145.5 million from 143 million. Equifax last month announced that it had suffered a massive data breach that exposed highly sensitive data of hundreds of millions of its customers, which includes names, social security numbers, dates of birth and addresses. In addition, credit card information for nearly 209,000 customers was also stolen, as well as certain documents with personally identifying information (PII) for approximately 182,000 Equifax consumers. The breach was due to a critical vulnerability ( CVE-2017-5638 ) in Apache Struts 2 framework, which Apache patched over two months earlier (on March 6) of the security incident. Equifax was e

Apache Struts 2 Flaws Affect Multiple Cisco Products

Apache Struts 2 Flaws Affect Multiple Cisco Products
Sep 12, 2017
After Equifax massive data breach that was believed to be caused due to a vulnerability in Apache Struts , Cisco has initiated an investigation into its products that incorporate a version of the popular Apache Struts2 web application framework. Apache Struts is a free, open-source MVC framework for developing web applications in the Java programming language, and used by 65 percent of the Fortune 100 companies, including Lockheed Martin, Vodafone, Virgin Atlantic, and the IRS. However, the popular open-source software package was recently found affected by multiple vulnerabilities, including two remote code execution vulnerabilities—one discovered earlier this month, and another in March—one of which is believed to be used to breach personal data of over 143 million Equifax users . Some of Cisco products including its Digital Media Manager, MXE 3500 Series Media Experience Engines, Network Performance Analysis, Hosted Collaboration Solution for Contact Center, and Unified C

Equifax Data Breach: Steps You should Take to Protect Yourself

Equifax Data Breach: Steps You should Take to Protect Yourself
Sep 08, 2017
Equifax has suffered one of the largest data breaches in history that has left highly sensitive data of as many as 143 million people —that's nearly half of the US population—in the hands of hackers. Based on the company's investigation, some unknown hackers managed to exploit a security flaw on the Equifax website and gained unauthorized access to certain files between mid-May and July 2017. The information accessed primarily include full names, birth dates, Social Security numbers, addresses and, in some cases, driver's license numbers—most of the information that's banks, insurance companies, and other businesses use to confirm a consumer identity. The company added that 209,000 credit card numbers were also obtained by the attackers, along with "certain dispute documents with personal identifying information for approximately 182,000 U.S. consumers." Equifax is one of the three major organizations in the United States that calculates credit scor

Equifax Hack Exposes Personal Info of 143 Million US Consumers

Equifax Hack Exposes Personal Info of 143 Million US Consumers
Sep 07, 2017
It's ironic—the company that offers credit monitoring and ID theft protection solutions has itself been compromised, exposing personal information of as many as 143 million Americans—that's almost half the country. Equifax, one of the three largest credit reporting firm in the United States, admitted today that it had suffered a massive data breach somewhere between mid-May and July this year, which it actually discovered on July 29—that means the data of 143 million people were exposed for over 3 months. However, it's unknown why Equifax waited 6 weeks before informing their millions of affected customers about the massive security breach. Based on Equifax's investigation, unknown hackers exploited a security vulnerability on its website to gain unauthorized access to certain files. Stolen data includes consumers' names, Social Security numbers, and birth dates for 143 million Americans, and in some instances, driving licence numbers and credit card n
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