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Facebook and Cambridge Analytica – What's Happened So Far

Facebook and Cambridge Analytica – What's Happened So Far

Mar 23, 2018
Top Story— Facebook has just lost over $60 billion in market value over the past two days—that's more than Tesla's entire market capitalisation and almost three times that of Snapchat. Facebook shares plunge over revelations that personal data of 50 million users was obtained and misused by British data analytics firm ' Cambridge Analytica ,' who reportedly helped Donald Trump win the US presidency in 2016. The privacy scandal that rocked the social media giant was revealed earlier this week when Chris Wylie , the 28-year-old data scientist who worked with a Cambridge University academic, turned into a whistleblower and leaked to the newspapers how poorly Facebook handles people's private information. Wylie claims Cambridge Analytica created " Steve Bannon's psychological warfare mindf**k tool " that profiles citizens to predict their voting patterns based on the personal information gathered from a variety of sources and then helps political
Expedia Orbitz Travel, Flights, Hotel Booking Site Compromised

Expedia Orbitz Travel, Flights, Hotel Booking Site Compromised

Mar 21, 2018
Chicago-based online travel booking company Orbitz, a subsidiary of Expedia.com , reveals that one of its old websites has been hacked, exposing nearly 880,000 payment card numbers of the people who made purchases online. Orbitz.com is a travel fare aggregator website and travel metasearch engine, allowing customers to quickly and easily search and book flights, hotels, rental cars, vacation packages, travel deals, cruises and more. The data breach incident, which was detected earlier this month, likely took place somewhere between October 2016 and December 2017, potentially exposing customers' information from the travel site to hackers. According to the company, hackers may have accessed payment card information stored on a consumer and business partner platform, along with customers' personal information, including name, address, date of birth, phone number, email address and gender. However, the company said its services such as Expedia flights, Expedia hotels, E
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
Nearly Half of the Norway Population Exposed in HealthCare Data Breach

Nearly Half of the Norway Population Exposed in HealthCare Data Breach

Jan 22, 2018
Cybercriminals have stolen a massive trove of Norway's healthcare data in a recent data breach, which likely impacts more than half of the nation's population. An unknown hacker or group of hackers managed to breach the systems of Health South-East Regional Health Authority (RHF) and reportedly stolen personal info and health records of some 2.9 million Norwegians out of the country's total 5.2 million inhabitants. Health South-East RHA is a healthcare organisation that manages hospitals in Norway's southeast region, including Østfold, Akershus, Oslo, Hedmark, Oppland, Buskerud, Vestfold, Telemark, Aust-Agder and Vest-Agder. The healthcare organisation announced the data breach on Monday after it had been alerted by HelseCERT, the Norwegian CERT department for its healthcare sector, about an "abnormal activity" against computer systems in the region. HelseCERT also said the culprits behind the data breach are "advanced and professional" hacke
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Automated remediation solutions are crucial for security

websiteWing SecurityShadow IT / SaaS Security
Especially when it comes to securing employees' SaaS usage, don't settle for a longer to-do list. Auto-remediation is key to achieving SaaS security.
LeakedSource Founder Arrested for Selling 3 Billion Stolen Credentials

LeakedSource Founder Arrested for Selling 3 Billion Stolen Credentials

Jan 16, 2018
Canadian authorities have arrested and charged an Ontario man for operating a website that collected 'stolen' personal identity records and credentials from some three billion online accounts and sold them for profit. According to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the 27-year-old Jordan Evan Bloom of Thornhill is the person behind the notorious LeakedSource.com —a major repository that compiled public data breaches and sold access to the data, including plaintext passwords. Launched in late 2015, LeakedSource had collected around 3 billion personal identity records and associated passwords from some of the massive data breaches, including LinkedIn , VK.com , Last.Fm , Ashley Madison ,  MySpace , Twitter ,  Weebly and Foursquare , and made them accessible and searchable to anyone for a fee. LeakedSource was shut down , and its associated social media accounts have been suspended after the law enforcement raided its operator earlier last year. However, another
Forever 21 Confirms Security Breach Exposed Customer Credit Card Details

Forever 21 Confirms Security Breach Exposed Customer Credit Card Details

Jan 01, 2018
First notified in November of a data breach incident, popular clothing retailer Forever 21 has now confirmed that hackers stole credit card information from its stores throughout the country for several months during 2017. Although the company did not yet specify the total number of its customers affected by the breach, it did confirm that malware was installed on some point of sale (POS) systems in stores across the U.S. at varying times between April 3, 2017, and November 18, 2017. According to the company's investigation, which is still ongoing, the malware was designed to search for and likely steal sensitive customer credit card data, including credit card numbers, expiration dates, verification codes and, in some cases, cardholder names. Forever 21 has been using encryption technology since 2015 to protect its payment processing systems, but during the investigation, the company found that some POS terminals at certain stores had their encryption switched off, whic
Nissan Finance Canada Suffers Data Breach — Notifies 1.13 Million Customers

Nissan Finance Canada Suffers Data Breach — Notifies 1.13 Million Customers

Dec 22, 2017
It's the last month of this year, but possibly not the last data breach report. Nissan warns of a possible data breach of personal information on its customers who financed their vehicles through Nissan Canada Finance and INFINITI Financial Services Canada. Although the company says it does not know precisely how many customers were affected by the data breach, Nissan is contacting all of its roughly 1.13 million current and previous customers. In a statement released Thursday, Nissan Canada said the company became aware of an " unauthorized access to personal information " of some customers on December 11. " Nissan Canada Finance recently became aware it was the victim of a data breach that may have involved an unauthorized person(s) gaining access to the personal information of some customers that have financed their vehicles through Nissan Canada Finance and INFINITI Financial Services Canada, " the company said . It's believed that the unkno
Collection of 1.4 Billion Plain-Text Leaked Passwords Found Circulating Online

Collection of 1.4 Billion Plain-Text Leaked Passwords Found Circulating Online

Dec 12, 2017
Hackers always first go for the weakest link to quickly gain access to your online accounts. Online users habit of reusing the same password across multiple services gives hackers opportunity to use the credentials gathered from a data breach to break into their other online accounts. Researchers from security firm 4iQ have now discovered a new collective database on the dark web (released on Torrent as well) that contains a whopping 1.4 billion usernames and passwords in clear text. The aggregate database, found on 5 December in an underground community forum, has been said to be the largest ever aggregation of various leaks found in the dark web to date, 4iQ founder and chief technology officer Julio Casal noted in a blog post. Though links to download the collection were already circulating online over dark-web sites from last few weeks, it took more exposure when someone posted it on Reddit a few days ago, from where we also downloaded a copy and can now verify its auth
Uber Paid 20-Year-Old Florida Hacker $100,000 to Keep Data Breach Secret

Uber Paid 20-Year-Old Florida Hacker $100,000 to Keep Data Breach Secret

Dec 07, 2017
Last year, Uber received an email from an anonymous person demanding money in exchange for the stolen user database. It turns out that a 20-year-old Florida man, with the help of another, breached Uber's system last year and was paid a huge amount by the company to destroy the data and keep the incident secret. Just last week, Uber announced that a massive data breach in October 2016 exposed personal data of 57 million customers and drivers and that it paid two hackers $100,000 in ransom to destroy the information. However, the ride-hailing company did not disclose identities or any information about the hackers or how it paid them. Now, two unknown sources familiar with the incident have told Reuters that Uber paid a Florida man through HackerOne platform, a service that helps companies to host their bug bounty and vulnerability disclosure program. So far, the identity of the Florida man was unable to be obtained or another person who helped him carry out the hack.
Massive Breach Exposes Keyboard App that Collects Personal Data On Its 31 Million Users

Massive Breach Exposes Keyboard App that Collects Personal Data On Its 31 Million Users

Dec 05, 2017
In the digital age, one of the most popular sayings is—if you're not paying, then you're not the customer, you're the product. While downloading apps on their smartphones, most users may not realize how much data they collect on you. Believe me; it's way more than you can imagine. Nowadays, many app developers are following irresponsible practices that are worth understanding, and we don't have a better example than this newly-reported incident about a virtual keyboard app. A team of security researchers at the Kromtech Security Center has discovered a massive trove of personal data belonging to more than 31 million users of the popular virtual keyboard app, AI.type, accidentally leaked online for anyone to download without requiring any password. Founded in 2010, Ai.type is a customizable and personalizable on-screen keyboard for mobile phones and tablets, with more than 40 million users worldwide. Apparently, a misconfigured MongoDB database, owned by
PayPal Subsidiary Data Breach Hits Up to 1.6 Million Customers

PayPal Subsidiary Data Breach Hits Up to 1.6 Million Customers

Dec 04, 2017
Global e-commerce business PayPal has disclosed a data breach that may have compromised personally identifiable information for roughly 1.6 million customers at a payment processing company PayPal acquired earlier this year. PayPal Holdings Inc. said Friday that a review of its recently acquired company TIO Networks showed evidence of unauthorized access to the company's network, including some confidential parts where the personal information of TIO's customers and customers of TIO billers stored. Acquired by PayPal for US$233 Million in July 2017, TIO Network is a cloud-based multi-channel bill payment processor and receivables management provider that serves the largest telecom, wireless, cable and utility bill issuers in North America. PayPal did not clear when or how the data breach incident took place, neither it revealed details about the types of information being stolen by the hackers, but the company did confirm that its platform and systems were not affecte
Here's the NSA Employee Who Kept Top Secret Documents at Home

Here's the NSA Employee Who Kept Top Secret Documents at Home

Dec 02, 2017
A former employee—who worked for an elite hacking group operated by the U.S. National Security Agency—pleaded guilty on Friday to illegally taking classified documents home , which were later stolen by Russian hackers. In a press release published Friday, the US Justice Department announced that Nghia Hoang Pho , a 67-year-old of Ellicott City, Maryland, took documents that contained top-secret national information from the agency between 2010 and 2015. Pho, who worked as a developer for the Tailored Access Operations (TAO) hacking group at the NSA, reportedly moved the stolen classified documents and tools to his personal Windows computer at home, which was running Kaspersky Lab software. According to authorities, the Kaspersky Labs' antivirus software was allegedly used, one way or another, by Russian hackers to steal top-secret NSA documents and hacking exploits from Pho's home PC in 2015. "Beginning in 2010 and continuing through March 2015, Pho removed an
22-Year-Old Hacker Pleads Guilty to 2014 Yahoo Hack, Admits Helping Russian Intelligence

22-Year-Old Hacker Pleads Guilty to 2014 Yahoo Hack, Admits Helping Russian Intelligence

Nov 29, 2017
Karim Baratov , a 22-year-old Kazakhstan-born Canadian citizen, has pleaded guilty to hacking charges over his involvement in massive 2014 Yahoo data breach that affected all three billion yahoo accounts . In March, the US Justice Department announced charges against two Russian intelligence officers (Dmitry Dokuchaev and Igor Sushchin) from Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) and two hackers (Alexsey Belan and Karim Baratov) for breaking into yahoo servers in 2014. While Karim Baratov (Kay, a.k.a Karim Taloverov, a.k.a Karim Akehmet Tokbergenov) was arrested in Toronto at his Ancaster home by the Toronto Police Department in March this year, Alexsey Belan and both FSB officers currently reside in Russia, unlikely to be extradited. In the federal district court in San Francisco on Tuesday, Baratov admitted to helping the Russian spies and pleaded guilty to a total of nine counts which includes: One count of conspiring to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by
U.S. Charges Three Chinese Hackers for Hacking Siemens, Trimble & Moody

U.S. Charges Three Chinese Hackers for Hacking Siemens, Trimble & Moody

Nov 28, 2017
The United States Justice Department has charged three Chinese nationals for allegedly hacking Moody's Analytics economist, German electronics manufacturer Siemens, and GPS maker Trimble, and stealing gigabytes of sensitive data and trade secrets. According to an indictment unsealed Monday in federal court in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the three men worked for a Chinese cybersecurity company, Guangzhou Bo Yu Information Technology Company Limited ( Boyusec ), previously linked to China's Ministry of State Security. Earlier this year, security researchers also linked Boyusec to one of the active Chinese government-sponsored espionage groups, called Advanced Persistent Threat 3 (or APT3 ), which is also known as Gothic Panda, UPS Team, Buckeye, and TG-0110. In 2013, APT3 allegedly stole the blueprints for ASIO's new Canberra building using a piece of malware that was uploaded to an ASIO employee's laptop. According to the indictment, the three Chinese nationals
Imgur—Popular Image Sharing Site Was Hacked In 2014; Passwords Compromised

Imgur—Popular Image Sharing Site Was Hacked In 2014; Passwords Compromised

Nov 25, 2017
Only after a few days of Uber admitting last year's data breach of 57 million customers , the popular image sharing site disclosed that it had suffered a major data breach in 2014 that compromised email addresses and passwords of 1.7 million user accounts. In a blog post published on Friday, Imgur claimed that the company had been notified of a three-year-old data breach on November 23 when a security researcher emailed the company after being sent the stolen data. Imgur Chief Operating Officer (COO) then alerted the company's founder and the Vice President of Engineering to the issue before began working to validate that the data belonged to Imgur users. After completing the data validation, the company confirmed Friday morning that the 2014 data breach impacted approximately 1.7 million Imgur user accounts (a small fraction of its 150 million user base) and that the compromised information included only email addresses and passwords. Since Imgur has never asked fo
After Getting Hacked, Uber Paid Hackers $100,000 to Keep Data Breach Secret

After Getting Hacked, Uber Paid Hackers $100,000 to Keep Data Breach Secret

Nov 22, 2017
Uber is in headlines once again—this time for concealing last year's data breach that exposed personal data of 57 million customers and drivers. On Tuesday, Uber announced that the company suffered a massive data breach in October 2016 that exposed names, e-mail addresses and phone numbers of 57 million Uber riders and drivers along with driver license numbers of around 600,000 drivers. However, instead of disclosing the breach, the company paid $100,000 in ransom to the two hackers who had access to the data in exchange for keeping the incident secret and deleting the information, according to a report published by Bloomberg. Uber said none of its own systems were breached, rather two individuals outside the company inappropriately accessed and downloaded 57 million Uber riders' and drivers' data that was stored on a third-party cloud-based service. The cyberattack exposed the names and driver license numbers of some 600,000 drivers in the United States, and t
Forever 21 Warns Shoppers of Payment Card Breach at Some Stores

Forever 21 Warns Shoppers of Payment Card Breach at Some Stores

Nov 15, 2017
Another day, another data breach. This time a fast-fashion retailer has fallen victim to payment card breach. American clothes retailer Forever 21 announced on Tuesday that the company had suffered a security breach that allowed unknown hackers to gain unauthorized access to data from payment cards used at a number of its retail locations. The Los Angeles based company, which operates over 815 stores in 57 countries, didn't say which of its stores were affected, but it did note that customers who shopped between March and October this year may be affected. Forever 21 learned of the breach after the retailer received a report from a third-party monitoring service, suggesting there may have been "unauthorized access to data from payment cards that were used at certain FOREVER 21 stores." Besides this, the company also revealed that it implemented encryption and token-based authentication systems in 2015 that are intended to protect transaction data on its point-
Highly Critical Flaw (CVSS Score 10) Lets Hackers Hijack Oracle Identity Manager

Highly Critical Flaw (CVSS Score 10) Lets Hackers Hijack Oracle Identity Manager

Oct 31, 2017
A highly critical vulnerability has been discovered in Oracle's enterprise identity management system that can be easily exploited by remote, unauthenticated attackers to take full control over the affected systems. The critical vulnerability tracked as CVE-2017-10151, has been assigned the highest CVSS score of 10 and is easy to exploit without any user interaction, Oracle said in its advisory  published Monday without revealing many details about the issue. The vulnerability affects Oracle Identity Manager (OIM) component of Oracle Fusion Middleware—an enterprise identity management system that automatically manages users' access privileges within enterprises. The security loophole is due to a "default account" that an unauthenticated attacker over the same network can access via HTTP to compromise Oracle Identity Manager. Oracle has not released complete details of the vulnerability in an effort to prevent exploitation in the wild, but here the "def
Microsoft Kept Secret That Its Bug-Tracking Database Was Hacked In 2013

Microsoft Kept Secret That Its Bug-Tracking Database Was Hacked In 2013

Oct 17, 2017
It was not just Yahoo among "Fortune 500" companies who tried to keep a major data breach incident secret. Reportedly, Microsoft had also suffered a data breach four and a half years ago (in 2013), when a " highly sophisticated hacking group " breached its bug-reporting and patch-tracking database, but the hack was never made public until today. According to five former employees of the company, interviewed separately by Reuters , revealed that the breached database had been " poorly protected with access possible via little more than a password. " This incident is believed to be the second known breach of such a corporate database after a critical zero-day vulnerability was discovered in Mozilla's Bugzilla bug-tracking software in 2014. As its name suggests, the bug-reporting and patch-tracking database for Windows contained information on critical and unpatched vulnerabilities in some of the most widely used software in the world, includ
Disqus Hacked: More than 17.5 Million Users' Details Stolen in 2012 Breach

Disqus Hacked: More than 17.5 Million Users' Details Stolen in 2012 Breach

Oct 07, 2017
Another day, Another data breach disclosure. This time the popular commenting system has fallen victim to a massive security breach. Disqus, the company which provides a web-based comment plugin for websites and blogs, has admitted that it was breached 5 years ago in July 2012 and hackers stole details of more than 17.5 million users. The stolen data includes email addresses, usernames, sign-up dates, and last login dates in plain text for all 17.5 million users. What's more? Hackers also got their hands on passwords for about one-third of the affected users, which were salted and hashed using the weak SHA-1 algorithm. The company said the exposed user information dates back to 2007 with the most recently exposed from July 2012. According to Disqus, the company became aware of the breach Thursday (5th October) evening after an independent security researcher Troy Hunt, who obtained a copy of the site's information, notified the company. Within about 24 hours,
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
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