Data Breaches

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…

TORONTO — LifeLabs failed to protect the personal health information of millions of Canadians, a joint investigation suggests. The joint investigation by the information and privacy commissioners of Ontario and B.C. says the failure resulted in a significant privacy breach in December 2019, which affected 15 million Canadians – primarily in…

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has held a snap media conference to brief the nation on a large-scale cyber attack on the country. The sophisticated attack targeted the business sector as well as the government, including critical health infrastructure. While Morrison declined to name the country behind it, the ABC…

Dive Brief: Ransomware attacks increased 25% in Q1 2020 compared to Q4 2019, according to incidents recorded by Beazley Breach Response (BBR) Services, the breach response arm of cyber insurer Beazley. Manufacturing was hit the hardest, seeing a 156% quarter-on-quarter increase. While vendors and managed service providers were targets before, BBR found…