Data Breaches

December 14, 2020 Overview On May 27, 2019, the Fédération des caisses Desjardins du Québec (“Desjardins”) notified the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (“our Office” or the “OPC”) of a breach of security safeguards that ultimately affected close to 9.7 million individuals in Canada and abroad. The compromised personal information…

Original Post GATINEAU, QC, December 14, 2020 – A data breach at Desjardins – the largest ever in the Canadian financial services sector – was caused by a series of gaps in administrative and technological safeguards, according to an investigation by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC). The OPC today…

The Canada Revenue Agency has temporarily suspended its online services after two cyberattacks in which hackers used thousands of stolen usernames and passwords to fraudulently obtain government services and compromise Canadians’ personal information. A total of 5,500 CRA accounts were targeted in what the federal government described as two “credential…

TORONTO — At least two prominent fundraising organizations in Canada have notified their donors that their personal information may have been compromised in a May ransomware attack. Ransomware is a type of software designed to lock an information server and prevent it from being used by the host organization unless…

A class action lawsuit resulting from a large data breach was recently filed against online stationery and craft company Minted Inc. The proposed class action lawsuit, filed in a California federal court, claims that Minted Inc. failed to implement “reasonable security measures” and to properly encrypt certain personal information. Hackers allegedly accessed…

When contemplating a cybersecurity framework for a business, it’s vital that company-owners consider what the true cost of a data breach would be to them. Only then is it possible to determine how much time, attention, and money should be spent on cybersecurity. The cost of a data breach not…

TORONTO — Police have charged a suspect in connection with a massive data breach at one of the province’s largest toll routes, which affected tens of thousands of customers. Investigators with the York Regional Police Financial Crimes Unit say they began their investigation in May 2018 after the 407 Express…

An allegedly stolen Wattpad database containing 270 million records were being sold in private sales for over $100,000. Now it is being offered for free on hacker forums. Watthpad is a web site that allows members to publish user-generated stories on a variety of different topics. The site is immensely popular…

The survey, conducted by Opinion Matters and commissioned by VMware Carbon Black, gauged responses from 251 UK CIOs, CTOs, and CISOs from UK organisations on the nature and frequency of cyber attacks targeting their organisations, whether they suffered breaches as a result, and how prepared they are to defend against…

WHEN SECURITY RESEARCHERS piece together the blow-by-blow of a state-sponsored hacking operation, they’re usually following a thin trail of malicious code samples, network logs, and connections to faraway servers. That detective work gets significantly easier when hackers record what they’re doing and upload the video to an unprotected server on…