In this week's issue: a data breach exposes nearly $1.4 million worth of Woolworth's gift cards, hackers compromise the personal information of a million Japanese citizens, the biggest MasterCard issuers were behind the scuttled Target data breach lawsuit, a stolen employee laptop leads to a data breach, and in this week's Rippleshot content, we take a look into the Home Depot data breach lawsuits.
Woolworths leaks $1 million in gift cards In massive breach
The largest supermarket chain in Australia is in the process of cancelling over $1 million worth of gift cards after a security incident involving its customers’ data. The personal information of thousands of Woolworth’s customers along with 8,000 redeemable gift codes was sent in an email to over 1,000 people. Due to this massive data leak, anyone that received the email could access over $1,308,505 worth of Woolworths’ gift cards and begin to make fraudulent purchases.
The Woolworths data breach was first discovered this past Saturday following a Groupon special, offering discounted gift cards. At this time, the current number of affected customers is unknown as Woolworths works to remedy the situation.
Hackers steal over a million japanese citizens' personal data
Japan’s universal public pension system was the target of a cyber attack, compromising the personal information of more than a million Japanese citizens. The attack on Japan Pension Service was first discovered on May 28, after an employee opened a suspicious email infected with a computer virus. According to the Wall Street Journal, the virus allowed hackers to gain access to the names and pension numbers of 31,000 people along with the names, pension numbers and birth dates of an additional 1.25 million people.
Biggest mastercard issuers scuttled deal on target data breach
Back in April, we covered the nearly $20 million settlement between Target, MasterCard and a group of affected financial institutions. Due to the certain conditions not being met, the data breach settlement was canceled. Nearly a month later, details came out revealing the major financial institutions that chose to reject the settlement deal between Target and MasterCard. In a recent Wall Street Journal report, sources close to the situation identified Capital One Financial, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase as three of the major issuers who felt the proposed settlement, "was too small to cover their losses in the incident…”
Get caught up on everything you need to know about the Target data breach lawsuits here.
Stolen, unencrypted laptop leads to data breach
On April 22, U.S. HealthWorks, a California-based health care provider, learned that an employee’s company laptop was stolen from their car, compromising its employees’ personal information. According to the data breach notification letter, the stolen laptop was password protected, but the sensitive information stored within was not encrypted. U.S. HealthWorks determined that the unencrypted files could contain, names, addresses, dates of birth, job title and Social Security numbers of as many as 3,600 of its current employees.
The three largest data breaches in 2015 so far have all involved organizations in the healthcare/medical industry. Are we beginning to see a trend where cybercriminals target the extremely valuable protected health information (PHI)? Learn more about the data breaches that affected CareFirst BCBS, Premera BCBS and Anthem Inc. BCBS.
Rippleshot Content: Breaking Down The Home Depot Data Breach Lawsuits
This week, we take a detailed look into the lawsuits against Home Depot and the data breach the retailer faced over the summer of 2014, exposing the information of 56 million payment cards. Just like the Target data breach lawsuits, Home Depot is currently facing both consumer and issuer lawsuits. Now that both lawsuits have been formally filed with the United States District Court in Georgia, join us as we take a deep dive into the complaints and claims listed.
SHARING IS CARING. TO GET YOUR FRIENDS AND COWORKERS SUBSCRIBED, SEND THEM HERE.
