Author Archives: damien
Leicestershire County Council Escape Fine after Data Loss
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has completed their investigation into a case where a Leicestershire County Council employee lost confidential data belonging to 18 children. Strict data protection laws had been broken and this case could have been prevented if the regulatory laws had been adhered too. The ICO have been critical of Leicestershire County Council but there have been no indication that they impose a fine. The main role …
Anonymous Attack China
During the past few days, the hacktivist group Anonymous have concentrated a series of attacks on Chinese websites. The group is claiming that they have successfully defaced 480 websites which include regional government sites. The hacktivist group has also left messages on the defaced sites encouraging Chinese hackers to follow suit and continue with what they have started. The Chinese authorities have responded quickly, taking the affected sites offline. However, …
Military Personnel Data Could Be Compromised After Dating Website Hacked
It is being reported that the website MilitarySingles.com has been successfully hacked by a group who call themselves LulzSec Reborn. It is thought that information such as email addresses and passwords relating to a total of 170,000 accounts has been compromised. Despite such claims by security experts, the company that operates the dating website, ESingles, has refused to acknowledge that a security breach has occurred at this stage and that …
Hacktivists Experience Greater Success than Cybercriminals in 2011
The Annual Report Data Breach Investigations that is compiled by Verizon has revealed that hacktivists stole more data than cybercriminals in 2011. This is a significant change in recent trends as previous findings reported that cybercriminals had stolen the most data within a year. It is reported that hacktivists stole 58% of the data that was stolen during 2011. For those who are unsure of the difference between a hacktivists …
Virgin Media set to provide Wi-Fi at London Underground Stations
London Underground has awarded Virgin Media the contract to provide a Wi-Fi service for the London Underground stations. By the start of the Olympic Games, the Wi-Fi service will be available at 80 of the 217 stations. By the end of the year, this is expected to have increased to 120 stations. The Wi-Fi service will only be accessible at platforms, ticket offices and escalators. This will be disappointing news …
NASA Need to Launch a New Cyber Security Program
Paul Martin, NASA’s inspector general has reported to Congress that NASA’s computer system has been successfully hacked 13 times within the last year. Martin reported that the more severe cases resulted in the hackers gaining “full functional control” of important systems. This is despite NASA’s attempt to improve cyber security by spending $58 million of its $1.5 billion budget on cyber security. NASA’s security policies have come under heavy criticism …
UK Rank Favourably in a Cyber-Defence Survey
A cyber defence survey which was conducted by the Security and Defence Agenda think tank rated the UK cyber-readiness four stars out of five. This ranks the UK alongside countries such as Germany and the USA and suggests that recent initiatives that have been implemented have improved the UKs cyber-readiness. Israel, Finland and Sweden led the way with a rank of four and a half stars out of five whilst …
Data Loss Results in Convicted Murderer Getting a Re-trial
It has been confirmed that Randy Chavianowho, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2009 after being convicted of second degree murder will be given a new trial. Chavianowho, who is from Florida, USA, was found guilty of fatally shooting Carlos Acosta. Lawyers who were working on an appeal case discovered that the majority of the court transcripts from his trial could not be found. It soon became apparent …
Application Security: Adobe Case Study
The promised updates for those who are using the Adobe Reader 9.x and Acrobat 9.x applications on a Microsoft Windows operating system have been released. Adobe had to release the unscheduled updates due to an increased number of cases of hackers exploiting a security weakness in the software which enabled them to hijack the machine, and potentially compromise confidential data. These updates for the applications aim to prevent hackers from …
Abode Tighten up Software Security
Lockheed Martin’s computer incident response team and the Defense Security Information Exchange, who both monitor potential security threats for military contractors and other organisations, have revealed that hackers have been exploiting a weakness in the most recent versions of Abode Reader and Acrobat applications. Abode have confirmed this and explained that the security weakness in the applications are allowing hackers to hijack computers which are using Microsoft Windows, putting confidential …
