The Hacker News - Most Trusted Cyber Security and Computer Security Analysis: data breach

Popular password management service LastPass said it's investigating a second security incident that involved attackers accessing some of its customer information. "We recently detected unusual activity within a third-party cloud storage service, which is currently shared by both LastPass and its affiliate, GoTo," LastPass CEO Karim Toubba  said . GoTo, formerly called LogMeIn, acquired LastPass in October 2015. In December 2021, the Boston-based firm  announced  plans to spin off LastPass as an independent company. The digital break-in resulted in the unauthorized third-party leveraging information obtained following a previous breach in August 2022 to access "certain elements of our customers' information." The August 2022 security event  targeted  its development environment, leading to the theft of some of its source code and technical information. In September, LastPass  revealed  the threat actor had access for four days. The scope of the breach

The French data protection watchdog on Tuesday fined electricity provider Électricité de France (EDF)  €600,000 for violating the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements. The Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés (CNIL)  said  the electric utility breached European regulation by storing the passwords for over 25,800 accounts by hashing them using the  MD5 algorithm  as recently as July 2022. It's worth noting that MD5, a message digest algorithm, is considered cryptographically broken as of December 2008 owing to the risk of  collision attacks . Furthermore, the authority noted that the passwords associated with 2,414,254 customer accounts had only been hashed and not  salted , exposing the account holders to potential cyber threats. The probe also pointed fingers at EDF for failing to comply with GDPR data retention policies and for providing "inaccurate information on the origin of the data collected." "Th

The Australian government has passed a bill that markedly increases the penalty for companies suffering from serious or repeated data breaches. To that end, the maximum fines have been bumped up from the current AU$2.22 million to AU$50 million, 30% of an entity's adjusted turnover in the relevant period, or three times the value of any benefit obtained through the misuse of information, whichever is greater. The turnover period is the time duration from when the contravention occurred to the end of the month when the incident is officially addressed. "Significant privacy breaches in recent months have shown existing safeguards are outdated and inadequate," Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus  said  in a statement. "These reforms make clear to companies that the penalty for a major data breach can no longer be regarded as the cost of doing business." The legislation, called the Privacy Legislation Amendment (Enforcement and Other Measures) Bill 2022, also bestow

Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) has  levied fines  of €265 million ($277 million) against Meta Platforms for failing to safeguard the personal data of more than half a billion users of its Facebook service, ramping up privacy enforcement against U.S. tech firms. The fines follow an inquiry initiated by the European regulator on April 14, 2021, close on the heels of a leak of a "collated dataset of Facebook personal data that had been made available on the internet." This included the  personal information  associated with 533 million users of the social media platform, such as their phone numbers, dates of birth, locations, email addresses, gender, marital status, account creation date, and other profile details. Meta acknowledged that the information was "old data" that was obtained by malicious actors by taking advantage of a technique called "phone number enumeration" to  scrape users' public profiles . This entailed misusing a t

The Indian government on Friday released a draft version of the much-awaited data protection regulation, making it the fourth such effort since it was first proposed in July 2018. The  Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022 , as it's called,  aims  to secure personal data, while also seeking users' consent in what the draft claims is "clear and plain language" describing the exact kinds of information that will be collected and for what purpose. The draft is open for public consultation until December 17, 2022. India has over 760 million active internet users, necessitating that data generated and used by online platforms are subject to privacy rules to prevent abuse and increase accountability and trust. "The Bill will establish the comprehensive legal framework governing digital personal data protection in India," the government  said . "The Bill provides for the processing of digital personal data in a manner that recognizes the right of in

Australian health insurer Medibank today confirmed that personal data belonging to around 9.7 million of its current and former customers were accessed following a ransomware incident. The  attack , according to the company, was detected in its IT network on October 12 in a manner that it said was "consistent with the precursors to a ransomware event," prompting it to isolate its systems, but not before the attackers exfiltrated the data. "This figure represents around 5.1 million Medibank customers, around 2.8 million ahm customers, and around 1.8 million international customers," the Melbourne-based firm  noted . Compromised details include names, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses, as well as Medicare numbers (but not expiry dates) for ahm customers, and passport numbers (but not expiry dates) and visa details for international student customers. It further said the incident resulted in the theft of health claims data for about 16

Communication services provider Twilio this week disclosed that it experienced another "brief security incident" in June 2022 perpetrated by the same threat actor behind the  August hack  that resulted in unauthorized access of customer information. The security event occurred on June 29, 2022, the company said in an updated advisory shared this week, as part of its probe into the digital break-in. "In the June incident, a Twilio employee was socially engineered through voice phishing (or 'vishing') to provide their credentials, and the malicious actor was able to access customer contact information for a limited number of customers," Twilio  said . It further said the access gained following the successful attack was identified and thwarted within 12 hours, and that it had alerted impacted customers on July 2, 2022. The San Francisco-based firm did not reveal the exact number of customers impacted by the June incident, and why the disclosure was made

Australian health insurance firm Medibank on Wednesday disclosed that the personal information of all of its customers had been unauthorizedly accessed following a recent ransomware attack. In an update to its ongoing investigation into the incident, the firm  said  the attackers had access to "significant amounts of health claims data" as well as personal data belonging to its  ahm health insurance subsidiary  and international students. Medibank, which is one of the largest Australian private health insurance providers,  serves about 3.9 million customers  across the country. "We have evidence that the criminal has removed some of this data and it is now likely that the criminal has stolen further personal and health claims data," the company further added. "As a result, we expect that the number of affected customers could grow substantially." The company also said it's continuing its probe to determine what specific data has been stolen in th

U.S. cybersecurity and intelligence agencies have published a joint advisory warning of attacks perpetrated by a cybercrime gang known as the  Daixin Team  primarily targeting the healthcare sector in the country. "The Daixin Team is a ransomware and data extortion group that has targeted the HPH Sector with ransomware and data extortion operations since at least June 2022," the agencies  said . The alert was published Friday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Over the past four months, the group has been linked to multiple ransomware incidents in the Healthcare and Public Health (HPH) sector, encrypting servers related to electronic health records, diagnostics, imaging, and intranet services. It's also said to have exfiltrated personal identifiable information (PII) and patient health information (PHI) as part of a double extortion scheme to se

Microsoft this week confirmed that it inadvertently exposed information related to thousands of customers following a security lapse that left an endpoint publicly accessible over the internet sans any authentication. "This misconfiguration resulted in the potential for unauthenticated access to some business transaction data corresponding to interactions between Microsoft and prospective customers, such as the planning or potential implementation and provisioning of Microsoft services," Microsoft  said  in an alert. Microsoft also emphasized that the B2B leak was "caused by an unintentional misconfiguration on an endpoint that is not in use across the Microsoft ecosystem and was not the result of a security vulnerability." The misconfiguration of the Azure Blob Storage was spotted on September 24, 2022, by cybersecurity company SOCRadar, which termed the leak  BlueBleed . Microsoft said it's in the process of directly notifying impacted customers. The Win

In a US SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission)  8-K filing , Omnicell, the healthcare technology provider, revealed that some of its products, services, and internal systems were affected by ransomware.  Upon detecting the incident, the medication management systems provider took immediate action to contain the attack and ensure continued operation. In its  10-Q form  filing, Omnicell disclosed that cyber-attacks or data breaches disrupted its business.  Will you be the next victim? If you overlook the importance of data protection, attackers can get you in no time.  Explore the  impact of the data breach  on the healthcare sector and what preventive measures can be taken against such attacks. Omnicell Announced Data Breach  Founded in 1992, Omnicell is a leading provider of medication management solutions for hospitals, long-term care facilities, and retail pharmacies.  On May 4, 2022 , Omnicell's IT systems and third-party cloud services were affected by ransomware attac

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) has arrested a 19-year-old teen from Sydney for allegedly attempting to leverage the data leaked following the Optus data breach late last month to extort victims. The suspect is said to have carried out a text message blackmail scam, demanding that the recipients transfer $2,000 to a bank account or risk getting their personal information misused for fraudulent activities. The source of the data, the agency said, was a sample database of 10,200 records that was posted briefly on a cybercrime forum accessible on the clearnet by an actor named "optusdata," before taking it down. Details of the scam were  previously shared  by 9News Australia reporter Chris O'Keefe on September 27, 2022. The AFP further said it executed a search warrant at the home of the offender, leading to the seizure of a mobile phone used to send the text messages to about 93 Optus customers. "At this stage it appears none of the individuals who received t

A U.S. federal court jury has found former Uber Chief Security Officer Joseph Sullivan guilty of not disclosing a 2016 breach of customer and driver records to regulators and attempting to cover up the incident. Sullivan has been convicted on two counts: One for obstructing justice by not reporting the incident and another for misprision. He faces a maximum of five years in prison for the obstruction charge, and a maximum of three years for the latter. "Technology companies in the Northern District of California collect and store vast amounts of data from users," U.S. Attorney Stephanie M. Hinds  said  in a press statement. "We expect those companies to protect that data and to alert customers and appropriate authorities when such data is stolen by hackers. Sullivan affirmatively worked to hide the data breach from the Federal Trade Commission and took steps to prevent the hackers from being caught." The 2016 breach of Uber occurred as a result of two hackers

Australia's largest telecommunications company Telstra disclosed that it was the victim of a data breach through a third-party, nearly two weeks after Optus reported a breach of its own. "There has been no breach of Telstra's systems," Narelle Devine, the company's chief information security officer for the Asia Pacific region,  said . "And no customer account data was involved." It said the breach targeted a third-party platform called  Work Life NAB  that's no longer actively used by the company, and that the leaked data posted on the internet concerned a "now-obsolete Telstra employee rewards program." Telstra also noted it became aware of the breach last week, adding the information included first and last names and the email addresses used to sign up for the program. It further clarified that the data posted was from 2017. The data was "basic in nature," Devine said.  The company did not reveal how many employees wer

Australian telecom giant Optus on Monday confirmed that nearly 2.1 million of its current and former customers suffered a leak of their personal information and at least one form of identification number as a result of a  data breach  late last month. The company also  said  it has engaged the services of Deloitte to conduct an external forensic assessment of the attack to "understand how it occurred and how we can prevent it from occurring again." Optus is fully owned by Singaporean telecommunications conglomerate Singtel, which also has a significant stake in Bharti Airtel, the second largest carrier in India. "Approximately 1.2 million customers have had at least one number from a current and valid form of identification, and personal information, compromised," Singtel  said  in an announcement made on its website. It also said the breach affected expired IDs and personal information of about 900,000 additional customers. It further emphasized that the expo

Every year, billions of credentials appear online, be it on the dark web, clear web, paste sites, or in data dumps shared by cybercriminals. These credentials are often used for account takeover attacks, exposing organizations to breaches, ransomware, and data theft.  While CISOs are aware of growing identity threats and have multiple tools in their arsenal to help reduce the potential risk, the reality is that existing methodologies have proven largely ineffective. According to the  2022 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report , over 60% of breaches involve compromised credentials.  Attackers use techniques such as social engineering, brute force, and purchasing leaked credentials on the dark web to compromise legitimate identities and gain unauthorized access to victim organizations' systems and resources.  Adversaries often leverage the fact that some passwords are shared among different users, making it easier to breach multiple accounts in the same organization. Some emp

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) on Monday disclosed it's working to gather "crucial evidence" and that it's collaborating with overseas law enforcement authorities following the hack of telecom provider Optus. "Operation Hurricane has been launched to identify the criminals behind the alleged breach and to help shield Australians from identity fraud," the AFP  said  in a statement. The development comes after Optus, Australia's second-largest wireless carrier,  disclosed  on September 22, 2022, that it was a victim of a cyberattack. It claimed it "immediately shut down the attack" as soon as it came to light. The threat actor behind the breach also briefly released a sample of 10,200 records from the breach – putting those users at heightened risk of fraud – in addition to asking for $1 million as part of an extortion demand. The dataset has since been taken down, with the attacker also claiming to have deleted the only copy of the sto

The City of London Police on Friday revealed that it has arrested a 17-year-old teenager from Oxfordshire on suspicion of hacking. "On the evening of Thursday 22 September 2022, the City of London Police arrested a 17-year-old in Oxfordshire on suspicion of hacking," the agency  said , adding "he remains in police custody." The department said the arrest was made as part of an investigation in partnership with the U.K. National Crime Agency's cyber crime unit. No further details about the nature of the investigation were disclosed, although it's suspected that the law enforcement action may have something to do with the recent string of high-profile hacks aimed at  Uber  and  Rockstar Games . Both the intrusions are alleged to have been committed by the same threat actor, who goes by the name Tea Pot (aka teapotuberhacker). Uber, for its part, has pinned the breach on an attacker (or attackers) that it believes is associated with the LAPSUS$ extortion

American video game publisher Rockstar Games on Monday revealed it was a victim of a "network intrusion" that allowed an unauthorized party to illegally download early footage for the Grand Theft Auto VI. "At this time, we do not anticipate any disruption to our live game services nor any long-term effect on the development of our ongoing projects," the company  said  in a notice shared on its social media handles. The company said that the third-party accessed "confidential information from our systems," although it's not immediately clear if it involved any other data beyond the game footage. The trove of data, contains some 90 videos of clips from the game, leaked over the weekend on  GTAForums  by a user with an alias "teapotuberhacker," hinting that the party is also the same person responsible for the  recent Uber breach . The Uber hacker, who is going by the name  Tea Pot , is believed to be an 18-year-old teenager. No other de

Uber, in an update, said there is "no evidence" that users' private information was compromised in a breach of its internal computer systems that was discovered late Thursday. "We have no evidence that the incident involved access to sensitive user data (like trip history)," the company  said . "All of our services including Uber, Uber Eats, Uber Freight, and the Uber Driver app are operational." The ride-hailing company also said it's brought back online all the internal software tools it took down previously as a precaution, reiterating it's notified law enforcement of the matter. It's not immediately clear if the incident resulted in the theft of any other information or how long the intruder was inside Uber's network. Uber has not provided more specifics of how the incident played out beyond saying its investigation and response efforts are ongoing. But independent security researcher Bill Demirkapi characterized the company