Helping your business stay abreast and make sense of the critical stories in digital risk, cyber security and privacy. Email news@elevenM.com.au to subscribe.
The round-up
We start this edition round-up with a stern warning from the privacy regulator, telling organisations to stop downplaying data breaches. We saw a general trend of regulators and law enforcement stepping up this month, with historic decisions by the OAIC, the FTC and the Norwegian Data Protection Agency, and a crackdown on the notorious Emotet botnet.
Key articles
OAIC finds ‘multiple’ Australian companies downplaying data breaches
Summary: The Office of the Australian Privacy Commissioner (OAIC) isn’t happy about delays in the assessment of and notification of data breaches by a growing number of organisations.
Key risk takeaway: This stands as something of a warning from the Australian privacy regulator that it expects to see more timely assessment and notification of data breaches. Perhaps the regulator is sensing some complacency — as we prepare this month to mark the 3rd birthday of the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme, the attention and activity that characterised the scheme’s first year has arguably died off. In issuing its warning, the OAIC acknowledges “some data breaches are complex”, meaning organisations can find it challenging to quickly identify affected individuals. With complexity increasing as all entities increase their data holdings, we anticipate privacy automation and data mapping technologies will play a key role in helping organisations bridge the gap between current manual privacy processes and their desire to more promptly and efficiently manage privacy impacts.
Meanwhile, for the first time, the OAIC has ordered that compensation be paid for non-economic loss suffered by participants of a representative complaint against the Department of Home Affairs. Home Affairs must pay almost 1,300 asylum seekers for wrongfully publishing their personal information in 2014. Compensation will range from $500 to $20,000 per applicant, meaning Home Affairs could potentially be up for nearly $26 million. This ground-breaking decision could herald the dawn of a new cost for failing to secure personal information.
Tags: #privacy #ndb #compliance #privacyops #regulation
Grindr faces fine of nearly $12 million in Norway for alleged privacy violations
Summary: Norway’s data protection agency is proposing a fine of US $11.7 million against Grindr for the alleged improper sharing of users’ data to third-party companies for marketing purposes.
Key risk takeaway: This would be the biggest fine of its kind to date and indicates how seriously the GDPR takes the handling of sensitive personal information. The Norwegian Data Protection Authority said that Grindr had shared, without full consent, users’ GPS locations, profile data and other information with other companies. It also contends that the fact that a user is on Grindr is in itself information about sexual orientation, which is a specific class of sensitive information. Grindr may argue against the decision, but GDPR regulators are not pulling any punches in this area.
This fine comes as the Muslim Prayer app Salaat First, also an app that by default collects sensitive information, is exposed as selling granular location data of its android users in the UK, Germany, France and Italy. The app, which doesn’t provide an in-app link to the privacy policy, sells a range of device and operation data including the user’s unique advertising ID, which allowed the media company to whom the data was leaked to filter the cache to specific users and then follow that person’s movements through time. As the data was of EU citizens, the GDPR may also kick in on this one.
#privacy #datasharing #sensitiveinformation #privacypolicy #regulation #GDPR
Summary: Everalbum, a California-based facial recognition business, has been directed by the US Federal Trade Commission to delete the AI models and algorithms that it developed by harvesting people’s photos and videos without permission.
Key risk takeaway: This ruling is a significant disruptor of the old ‘it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission’, and indicates that regulators may now be looking beyond just fines and penalties. Apparently, Everalbum told people that it would not employ facial recognition on users’ content without consent, but in fact automatically activated the feature for people outside the EU and certain US states, and then used the data collected to build facial detection software. Facial detection software and algorithms are a hotly contested topic in the privacy world, and this ruling provides some indication that regulators are aware of the risks and are willing to take action to ensure violators aren’t allowed to profit from misuse.
#privacy #datahandling #regulation
Some ransomware gangs are going after top execs to pressure companies into paying
Summary: Ransomware gangs are reportedly prioritising stealing sensitive data from executives that can be used to extort businesses into approving large ransom payouts.
Key risk takeaway: The slow-but-steady evolution of ransomware tactics continues in 2021, further ramping up pressure on businesses and their leaders. Despite the clear “never pay ransom” edicts from governments, this canny and increasingly aggressive targeting of a business’ reputation will only increase agitation levels among boards and senior execs who are unsure what to do when their turn comes. This reality is made clear by another recent story, which reveals even those organisations who have been able to restore their systems from backups after a ransomware attack are still paying ransoms to ward off reputational damage. Simulation exercises remain a valuable way to practice how your organisation would handle a ransomware attack and how leaders might contemplate ransom demands. In brighter news, US authorities have charged an attacker reportedly responsible for the ransomware attacks on Toll Group and Law In Order.
Tags: #ransomware
Intel drops 9% after a reported hack forced the chipmaker to release its 4th-quarter earnings early
Summary: Shares fell after hacker gained unauthorised access to financially-sensitive information from Intel’s website.
Key risk takeaway: We could barely imagine a neater demonstration of the adverse financial impacts of a data breach. After a positive quarterly earnings result drove up Intel’s share price, the gains were wiped out just as quickly after an infographic of those very same positive results was released earlier than intended because of a hack. Little has been revealed about the hack, other than that the graphic was accessed by an unauthorised party from Intel’s public relations news website. If it’s of any comfort to Intel, even hackers don’t always take steps to protect sensitive data. Having stolen more than a thousand credentials, a group of hackers reportedly accidently exposed them on the internet, making them freely accessible on Google (undercutting the typical goal of selling the data on the dark web).
Tags: #databreaches #cyberattack
US, European police say they’ve disrupted the notorious Emotet botnet
Summary: U.S. and European law enforcement agencies said Wednesday they had seized control of the computing infrastructure used by Emotet, a botnet of infected machines that has been one of the most pervasive cybercrime threats over the last six years.
Key risk takeaway: This is a significant law enforcement action against a serious and pervasive cyber threat that has been used to run everything from political phishing to ransomware to banking trojans. While authorities are cautiously optimistic about the impact of the takedown, it’s nonetheless a big achievement and, at worst, one that will take cyber criminals some time to recover from.
#cybersecurity
The Scammer Who Wanted to Save His Country
Summary: A massive political corruption story in Brazil, involving the President and senior members of the legislature, was broken due to troves of hacked data. But what was initially thought to be a complicated hack, possibly by the Russians, turned out to be a simple exploit of poor security in the Telegram app, executed many times by a scammer.
Key risk takeaway: While the key risk takeaway from this story could be ‘don’t be a corrupt politician’, the reminder not to overlook ‘the simple’ in security processes is certainly not far behind. In this case, the vulnerability came about due to a combination of the Brazilian VoIP system allowing people to spoof any phone number onto their account (thus allowing the hacker to access voicemail systems), and the Telegram app sending verification codes for adding a new device to a voicemail, without also sending a notification to the app. This then gave the hacker access to download the targets’ entire chat history from the cloud.
While the outcome of this particular hack was the exposure of serious corruption, it nonetheless highlights how quickly the exploitation of a small hole in security protocols can snowball. Especially when security protocols fail to take into account the kind of innovative and imaginative thinking that only humans can apply.
#privacy #cybersecurity #hack #government
Remote hacker tries to poison water supply, exposing holes in OT security
Summary: Hackers have accessed a water plant in Florida via remote access tools, altering the chemical levels in the water supply.
Key risk takeaway: This is another timely reminder that not all hacks use sophisticated technology or approaches, and failing to consider all points of entry can leave essential systems vulnerable. In this instance, there is suggestion that the utilities industry is using outdated or not fit-for-purpose security systems, which significantly increases their risk profile when third party software or services are being used. The impact of cyber on critical infrastructure is a growing issue, with Governments and regulators concerned about both hacking and ransomware, as seen recently, with a US regulator asking energy companies to report their exposure to SolarWinds. The relationship between infrastructure and cyber security is further highlighted when operational technology is linked to other internet-enabled systems. Finding a vulnerable point of entry and then hopping across internal systems to gain access to critical functions is a hack methodology that organisations can’t afford to ignore.
#cybersecurity #hack #supplierrisk #cyberattack