We focus on the latest news surrounding data breaches, leaks and hacks plus daily internet security articles.
The social media giant hasn’t had it easy lately, with a number of data breach incidents plaguing their public image. The recent revelations about the Facebook password data protection flaws is another headache to add to the pile.
It’s understood that some Facebook passwords have not been securely stored and have been accessible to thousands of Facebook employees. You would expect that one of the biggest social media platforms in the world would have the best protection for passwords, but this story suggests otherwise.
Users affected by the issue are set to be contacted by Facebook. This incident is one in a long line of recent data scandals Facebook has been embroiled in.
Given the scale of this growing market, which is becoming increasingly monetised with in-game purchases often the norm now, we may see increases in online gaming data breach incidents.
When you look under the surface of the gaming industry, there are a number of reasons to feel concerned. The revelations about Fortnite hacking (or Fortnite cracking as it’s often referred to) is worrying. Some youngsters are making a mint by hacking into accounts and then making use of the often-hard-earned digital property the original account user had amassed as they sell accounts on.
Online gaming is on the rise. This could put a bigger target on their back for the cybercriminals and fraudsters who can exploit gamers with ransom demands and account takeovers.
The (PFEW) Police Federation of England and Wales data breach incidents were announced earlier this month, and they’re potentially huge. The PFEW cyber attacks may have affected 120,000 police employees.
Although PFEW say that they don’t believe any information was exposed, they cannot rule it out. For the potential victims of the breaches, this isn’t helpful. It’s hard enough these days being on the police force with constant cuts and under-staffing.
This kind of added stress in the current environment of policing isn’t helpful at all.
A recent prosecution has taken place over the V12 Sports and Classics data breach incident where a former employee of the company has been found guilty of breaking the law.
In this case, the former employee (32-year-old Jayana Morgan Davies) reportedly forwarded work emails that contained the data of customers and colleagues to her personal account. She resigned from her position a few weeks later, which suggests a specific motive for the illegal processing of the data she misused.
The incident is said to have taken place in August 2017. It has led to a successful prosecution from the ICO (the Information Commissioner’s Office).
It’s understood that a Bromford data breach incident occurred last year after the housing association accidentally sent letters to the old addresses for hundreds of tenants.
News of the breach comes from the media outlet Inside Housing. The error appears to be linked to some form of system issue where the old addresses for some tenants was copied into a new system. Some 30,000 letters were then sent to tenants in relation to rent reviews, and it’s believed that 253 of them were sent to the wrong (old) address.
After concerned tenants contacted the company about issues receiving their letters, the mistake was discovered. By then, the damage had already been done.
There has been a Heart of England NHS data breach incident, and it’s yet another case of an NHS employee snooping on the personal data of people they know.
We’ve spoken out about the issue of NHS employees abusing their rights to access medical data a lot recently. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) – the UK’s data watchdog – has prosecuted a number of offenders for such actions. They’ve also had to send out warnings to staff about their responsibilities and the punishments they can face when it comes to this kind of behaviour.
A large volume of the cases we represent people for are NHS data breach compensation claims, so hearing of these kinds of incidents isn’t surprising.
There’s been an avoidable Rotherham Council data leak, the likes of which is not an uncommon type of data incident, particularly for a local authority.
Almost 900 people are reportedly affected by the leak, with victims calling the incident “extremely serious” and worrying about the possibilities of falling victim to crime.
One of the most common types of legal cases we run are claims for council data breach compensation. In fact, a huge proportion of the individual cases we’re fighting for justice in involve local authority services. This incident, unfortunately, is unsurprising to hear about.
We’re coming up to the two-year anniversary of what was one of the world’s biggest breaches, so we’re making sure to remind you not to miss the boat in the Equifax class action.
We launched legal action in the UK soon after news of the massive Equifax data breach hit the headlines. We’re now acting for a large group of people affected in the UK, as one of the over 20 different data breach group actions / multi party actions our lawyers are working on.
Unlike what some firms may do when they’re not experienced in the kinds of areas like we are, we’re activity taking cases forward on a No Win, No Fee basis. We’re not just registering information with a view to trying to taking further action later.
There has been a prosecution for a worrying Nuneaton and Bedworth Council data breach that’s an example of how employees can exploit the data they can access.
In this incident, former head of building control at the council, Kevin Bunsell, shared personal information about job applications with his partner. His partner had applied for the same job that the candidates whose data was shared had applied for, and she won the position.
Although we can only speculate as to the motives, we can assume that the reasons for sharing the data were to assist his partner in securing the position which she was eventually awarded.
We may see a Marriott GDPR fine applied after the monumental breach that was discovered last year, given the volume of people affected and the nature of the breach.
As many as 500 million people were affected, with data said to have been compromised between 2014 and 2018. An unauthorised third-party is said to have accessed the guest reservation table fore the Startword division of the company. Data exposed in the breach included a lot of personal and account data.
The breach lapses over GDPR coming into force in May 2018. That means that the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office) could issue a fine that equates to 4% of the Marriott’s global annual turnover.
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