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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...

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...

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 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...

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...

British and Dutch data protection regulators Tuesday hit the ride-sharing company Uber with a total fine of $1,170,892 (~ 1.1 million) for failing to protect its customers' personal information during a 2016 cyber attack involving millions of users. Late last year, Uber unveiled that the company had suffered a massive data breach in October 2016, exposing names, email addresses and phone numbers of 57 million Uber riders and drivers along with driving license numbers of around 600,000 drivers. Besides this, it was also reported that instead of disclosing the breach at the time, the company paid $100,000 in ransom to the two hackers with access to the stolen data in exchange for keeping the incident secret and deleting the information. Today Britain's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) fined Uber 385,000 pounds ($491,102), while the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Dutch DPA) levied a 600,000 euro ($679,790) penalty on Uber for failing to protect the personal informatio...

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 ...

The massive Equifax data breach that exposed highly sensitive data of as many as 143 million people was caused by exploiting a flaw in Apache Struts framework, which Apache patched over two months earlier of the security incident, Equifax has confirmed. Credit rating agency Equifax is yet another example of the companies that became victims of massive cyber attacks due to not patching a critical vulnerability on time, for which patches were already issued by the respected companies. Rated critical with a maximum 10.0 score, the Apache Struts2 vulnerability (CVE-2017-5638) exploited in the Equifax breach was disclosed and fixed by Apache on March 6 with the release of Apache Struts version 2.3.32 or 2.5.10.1. This flaw is separate from CVE-2017-9805, another Apache Struts2 vulnerability that was patched earlier this month, which was a programming bug that manifests due to the way Struts REST plugin handles XML payloads while deserializing them, and was fixed in Struts ve...

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...

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...

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-...

Britain's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) today hit British Airways with a record fine of £183 million for failing to protect the personal information of around half a million of its customers during last year's security breach . British Airways, who describes itself as "The World's Favorite Airline," disclosed a breach last year that exposed personal details and credit-card numbers of up to 380,000 customers and lasted for more than two weeks. At the time, the company confirmed that customers who booked flights on its official website (ba.com) and British Airways mobile app between August 21 and September 5 had had their details stolen by attackers. The cyberattack was later attributed to the infamous Magecart threat actor, one of the most notorious hacking groups specialized in stealing credit card details from poorly-secured websites, especially online eCommerce platforms. Magecart hackers have been known for using digital credit card ski...

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 no secret that data leaks have become a major concern for both citizens and institutions across the globe. They can cause serious damage to an organization's reputation, induce considerable financial losses, and even have serious legal repercussions. From the infamous Cambridge Analytica scandal to the Equifax data breach, there have been some pretty high-profile leaks resulting in massive consequences for the world's biggest brands. Breaches can also have a huge impact on individuals as well – ultimately leading to the loss of personal information, such as passwords or credit card details, which could be used by criminals for malicious purposes. Most notably victims are left vulnerable to identity theft or financial fraud.  When you think about the sheer volume of these leaks, one would imagine that the world would stop and focus on the attack vector(s) being exploited. The unfortunate reality is the world didn't stop. To make things more interesting, the most ...

Facebook has finally been slapped with its first fine of £500,000 for allowing political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica to improperly gather and misuse data of 87 million users . The fine has been imposed by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office ( ICO ) and was calculated using the UK's old Data Protection Act 1998 which can levy a maximum penalty of £500,000 — ironically that's equals to the amount Facebook earns every 18 minutes. The news does not come as a surprise as the U.K.'s data privacy watchdog already notified the social network giant in July this year that the commission was intended to issue the maximum fine. For those unaware, Facebook has been under scrutiny since earlier this year when it was revealed that the personal data of 87 million users was improperly gathered and misused by political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica , who reportedly helped Donald Trump win the US presidency in 2016. The ICO, who launched an investigation...

Another day, another data breach. This time Amazon-owned grocery chain has fallen victim to a credit card security breach. Whole Foods Market—acquired by Amazon for $13.7 billion in late August— disclosed Thursday that hackers were able to gain unauthorized access to credit card information for its customers who made purchases at certain venues like taprooms and full table-service restaurants located within some stores. Whole Foods Market has around 500 stores in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. The company did not disclose details about the targeted locations or the total number of customers affected by the breach, but it did mention that hackers targeted some of its point-of-sale (POS) terminals in an attempt to steal customer data, including credit details. The company also said people who only shopped for groceries at Whole Foods were not affected, neither the hackers were able to access Amazon transactions in the security breach. Instead, only certain venu...

Cloud services have become increasingly important to many companies' daily operations, and the rapid adoption of web apps has allowed businesses to continue operating with limited productivity hiccups, even as global coronavirus restrictions have forced much of the world to work from home. But at the same time, even major corporations have fallen prey to hackers. How can you maintain the integrity of your IT resources and data while still taking advantage of the benefits of software as a service (SaaS)? While cybersecurity is a broad and complicated topic, let's consider a hypothetical SaaS scenario and examine some of the risks. Imagine that one of your employees is writing a sensitive report. It could have financial or medical data in it. It could have information on a revolutionary new design. Whatever it is, the report needs to be kept confidential. What would happen if your employee writes the report in Google Docs? Let's assume that this decision wasn...