Month: July 2019

In September 2017, credit bureau Equifax announced that its systems had been breached. Between mid-May and the end of July 2017, the attackers gained unauthorized access to the personal information of about 147 million U.S. consumers. This information included people’s names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and in some instances driver’s license number

Equifax has agreed to pay at least $575 million and up to $700 million to resolve consumer claims and multiple state and federal investigations stemming from the episode.

Consumers may file a claim up until January 22, 2020 and get up to $20,000, if they can prove damages.

Check whether your credit was impacted, file a claim, or read more about it here.

A hacker has stolen data from a Bulgarian government system, likely the National Revenue Agency (NRA), and sent it to local media. The hacker stole personal information of 5 million people, nearly every adult in Bulgaria, population 7 million people. The hacker bragged about stealing 110 databases from NRA’s servers, totaling nearly 21 GB. The hacker only shared 57 databases, comprising 11 GB of data, with local news outlets, but promised to release the rest in the coming days. Most of the data is very old, in some cases, information is dated back as far as 2007.

A Bulgarian CyberSecurity expert named Kristian Boykov was later arrested in connection with the data breach, and then released after his charges were downgraded.

Read more about it here.

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has approved a record $5 billion settlement with Facebook over the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the largest the agency has levied on a technology company. The $5 Billion are minuscule compared to the nearly $56 billion in revenue in 2018. Facebook has already set aside $3 billion aside in the first quarter of 2019, in anticipation of the settlement with the FTC.

In the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal, the company was allowed to access the personal data of about 87 million Facebook users without their explicit consent. Recently the UK’s Information Commissioner Office (ICO) has also imposed a £500,000 fine on Facebook over the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Facebook and investors are now concerned about further restrictions and government oversight that might come with it.

Read more about it here.

The Village of Key Biscayne, Florida, was hit by a ransomware attack hit, shutting down its computer systems.

Village Manager Andrea Agha said a “data security event” occurred Sunday, June 23, 2019. She said that some permitting operations were handled manually, while some systems were kept off-line “in an abundance of caution.”

A special council meeting to discuss the issue was held, where it was decided to spend $30,000 on hiring a data recovery firm.

Read more about it here.