In this week's issue: the Utah Food Bank suffers a data breach, the Obama administration is drafting possible sanctions for China, a new strain of iPhone malware has been discovered, the U.S. government will pay at least $133 million for the OPM data breach and in this week's Rippleshot blog post, Rippleshot CEO Canh Tran looks at the 2015 holiday season and if consumers will be impacted by data breaches.
The Utah Food Bank’s website exposed the personal information of more than 10,000 of its donors in a security breach. Utah Food Bank officials said in letters sent out to affected donors that an individual gained unauthorized access to donor personal information through the food bank’s website. The security breach occurred between October 08, 2013 and July 16, 2015. In the letter, affected individuals may have had their addresses, emails, names and payment information including card security codes and expiration dates.
According to Utah Food Bank officials, there is little risk for identity theft for the affected individuals, as the organization does not collect Social Security numbers. The Utah Food Bank is offering identity protection and credit monitoring for the affected donors for a full year.
After the massive data breach involving the theft of twenty million Americans from the databases of the Office of Personnel Management, it appears that the individuals responsible for the data hack have ties to the Chinese government. Those closest to the investigation have hinted that the Obama administration is drafting potential sanctions that would be imposed on China for its involvement in the hack.
In less than a month, President Xi Jinping of China will visit the U.S. to meet with President Barack Obama to discuss a variety of topics including climate change and the negotiations surrounding Iran and it’s nuclear program. Due to the unique relationship between the U.S. and Chinese government, the Obama administration is handling this issue in a sensitive manner to avoid upsetting America’s second largest trading partner.
A new strain of malware, uncovered by security professionals, has been identified as being responsible for the stolen login credentials of more than 225,000 iPhone users. This malware can steal login information, receipts from online purchases and security credentials from affected iPhones that were unlocked through a jailbreaking method. First discovered by researchers from Palo Alto Software and WeiPhone, the malware titled “KeyRaider” does not affect iPhones that have not been jailbroken to allow root access to the phone’s file systems.
Due to the number of affected individuals and the value associated with the stolen information, this attack method should be more appealing to cybercriminals and fraudsters.
The Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) data breach that stole the personal information of 21.5 million individuals has been on the mind of lawmakers, consumers and security professionals. The personal information, including Social Security numbers and fingerprint data were stolen by cybercriminals linked to China. In order to protect the tens of millions of affected individuals from identity theft and future fraud, the U.S. government has decided to use ID Experts’ services.
The contract will cost the government at least $133 million and could cost as much as $329.8 million depending on certain options within the contract. The second figure is an eye-opening cost, especially when some security experts doubt the effectiveness of credit monitoring services.
If the last two years were any indication for the next two, it's that data breaches and the future fraud associated with said breaches is not going away anytime soon. It is something that affects all of us, whether we know it or not. In this week's Rippleshot blog post, Rippleshot CEO and Co-founder Canh Tran looks at ten of the largest data breaches in recent history and discusses the impact that these breaches have had on consumers. We've also included four tips that can help protect you from the effects of a data breach.
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