The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has revealed that a worker took over 10,000 activity and staff records with him sometime in November 2015, shortly before he retired. The unnamed worker copied a "large number" of files to two thumb drives and, when asked about the data, couldn't find the drives to give them back.
A controversial Chinese cybersecurity law that has sparked protests from foreign governments and business groups neared approval as parliament held the third reading of the draft bill. The official Xinhua news agency said parliament had fully taken on board the views of the its standing committee and other parties, and had proposed passing the third and typically final reading at its current meeting to Nov. 7.
Google shared details about a security flaw in Windows, just 10 days after disclosing it to Microsoft on October 21. To make matters worse, Google says it is aware that this critical Windows vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild.
Facebook will allow more content on its platform that it would have earlier removed because it violated its standards, with new criteria being worked out, a senior executive said, following a row over the removal of an iconic Vietnam War photo. His comments came on the same day that more than 70 rights groups asked Facebook to clarify its policies for removing content, especially at the behest of governments, alleging the firm had repeatedly censored postings that document human rights violations.
In the latest challenge for the battered music industry, pirates are flooding Amazon.com Inc. and other online retailers with counterfeit CDs that often cost nearly as much as the official versions and increasingly are difficult to distinguish from the real goods. One major record company said that in some European markets its direct-to-consumer CD sales were flat, while its Amazon account sales were down 17% or more this year due to counterfeits.
Italy's antitrust watchdog said it had opened a probe into whether messaging service WhatsApp obliged users to agree to sharing personal data with its parent company Facebook and imposed "unfair" conditions on users. WhatsApp said in August it would start sharing phone numbers with the social network, prompting European regulators to declare they would put the matter under close scrutiny.
The hacker who stole nude photos of female celebrities in 2014 has been sentenced to 18 months in federal prison, officials announced. In a court in May, Ryan Collins, a 36-year-old from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty to federal hacking charges and admitted to a two-year phishing scam to gain passwords of more than 100 people, including actors Jennifer Lawrence and Aubrey Plaza and singers Rihanna and Avril Lavigne.
European Union privacy chiefs said Facebook Inc. must stop processing user data from its WhatsApp messaging service while they are investigating the privacy policy changes the company announced in August. The Article 29 Working Party, made up of privacy chiefs from across the 28-nation EU, told Facebook it had “serious concerns” about the sharing of WhatsApp users’ data for purposes that were not included in the terms of service and privacy policy when existing users signed up to the service, according to a statement.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the U.S. Congress asked the Justice Department to clarify how a looming rule change to the government's hacking powers could impact privacy rights of innocent Americans. The change, due to take place on December 1, would let judges issue search warrants for remote access to computers located in any jurisdiction, potentially including foreign countries.
Yahoo released its semiannual transparency report, the first issued by the company since Reuters revealed earlier this month that Yahoo scanned its users’ email accounts at the behest of the U.S. government. Between January and June 2016, Yahoo says it received 12,666 requests from governments worldwide focused on 20,511 user accounts.
Federal officials approved broad new privacy rules that prevent companies like AT&T and Comcast from collecting and giving out digital information about individuals — such as the websites they visited and the apps they used — in a move that creates landmark protections for internet users. The Federal Communications Commission's new rules require broadband providers to obtain permission from subscribers to gather and give out data on their web browsing, app use, location and financial information.
Daily fantasy sports websites DraftKings and FanDuel are agreeing to pay $6 million each to settle allegations from New York's attorney general over false advertising. “Today’s settlements make it clear that no company has a right to deceive New Yorkers for its own profit,” New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement announcing the settlement.
Governments pay a significant price when they disrupt access and connectivity to the Internet because such shutdowns undermine economic growth, jeopardize lives, and erode confidence, Brookings Institution said in a study. Between July 1, 2015 and June 30, 2016, 81 temporary internet blackouts in 19 countries cost those economies at least $2.4 billion, Darrell M. West, director of governance studies and founding director of Brookings’ Center for Technology Innovation, wrote in the report.
Some have worried that the massive cyberattack that disrupted the Internet was the work of Russian government-backed hackers, politically motivated hacktivists or sophisticated cybercriminals. But researchers at cyber-intelligence firm Flashpoint say the Internet meltdown may have been carried out by amateurs who haunt a popular hacking forum.
A widely expected legal challenge has been filed by an Irish privacy advocacy group to an EU-U.S. commercial data transfer pact underpinning billions of dollars of trade in digital services just two months after it came into force, sources said. The EU-U.S. Privacy Shield was agreed earlier this year after the European Union's highest court struck down the previous such framework for transferring Europeans' private data to the United States on concerns about intrusive U.S. surveillance.
The U.S. government told banks to include details about cyber attacks when filing mandatory reports on fraud and money laundering, saying that will help battle digital crimes that pose "a significant threat" to the U.S. financial system. The U.S. government has long required banks to submit confidential reports known as suspicious activity reports, or SARs, in fraud cases involving at least $5,000.
Obama administration officials briefed key congressional staffers about a secret court order to Yahoo that prompted it to search all users’ incoming emails for a still undisclosed digital signature, but they remain reluctant to discuss the unusual case with a broader audience. Executive branch officials spoke to staff for members of the Senate and House of Representatives committees overseeing intelligence operations and the judiciary, according to people briefed on the events, which followed Reuters’ disclosure of the massive search.
Hundreds of owners of Samsung Electronics Co.’s fire-prone Galaxy Note 7 filed a class-action lawsuit demanding compensation. Also, a South Korean investment advisory firm recommended shareholders vote against Vice Chairman Jay Y. Lee joining the board, in the strongest public opposition so far to the heir-apparent’s ascension.
For nearly eight years, the presidency has been Barack Obama’s science and technology playground, a place where he sought to become the advocate in chief for industries pushing advanced batteries, powerful medical devices and cutting-edge research. With less than three months left in his presidency, Mr. Obama is preparing for a life after the White House that will most likely include a close relationship with Silicon Valley.
Obama administration officials sought to reassure the public that it was taking steps to counter new types of cyber attacks such as the one Friday that rendered Twitter, Spotify, Netflix and dozens of other major websites unavailable. The Department of Homeland Security said it had held a conference call with 18 major communication service providers shortly after the attack began and was working to develop a new set of “strategic principles” for securing internet-connected devices.
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