Driver’s License Thefts Spur ADOT to Boost Online Safeguards
Arizona transportation officials announced enhanced security measures Thursday for a state website that identity thieves exploited to get dozens of duplicate driver’s licenses. The Arizona Department of Transportation announced new safeguards after acknowledging to Azfamily.com this week that at least 164 drivers have been the victims of theft. The cases go back to July 2018. The agency has also been involved in four criminal investigations that have led to 10 arrests. Thieves were able to order driver’s licenses on ServiceArizona.com using little personal information and have them sent to another address. The licenses have been used to open bank accounts and credit card accounts, according to ADOT.
‘WhiteShadow’ Downloader Employs Microsoft SQL for Malware Delivery
Microsoft Office macros that collectively act as a stage downloader are utilizing Microsoft SQL queries to fetch malicious payloads, Proofpoint’s security researchers report. Referred to as WhiteShadow, the downloader was initially detected in August 2019, when it was delivering a variant of the Crimson remote access Trojan (RAT). In the meantime, it has evolved with the addition of detection evasion and with basic obfuscation features.
German cops arrest suspects in raid on darknet server
Seven people were arrested in a raid on a suspected cybercrime operation in Germany late Thursday. Police took a darknet server offline and impounded it, a spokesman for the police in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate said. Police have investigated the suspects for trafficking weapons, drugs and child sex abuse images — “everything you would imagine in the darknet,” said the spokesman, in the western city of Trier.
Pupil mental health monitor promises app rewrite after hardcoded login creds discovered
A Brit biz whose mobile apps monitor the mental state of 35,000 British schoolchildren is having to rewrite them after researchers found hardcoded login credentials within. “Tracking steering biases is a pioneering technique developed by STEER using AI to identify patterns of bias linked to mental health risks in 10,000 test students,” burbles the company’s website. Steer, a trading name of Mind.World Ltd, claims to have 150 subscribing schools. Included within the customer list on its website are British public schools such as Charterhouse, Fettes College, Oundle School and Wellington College.
Waymo and AAA team up to educate kids on self-driving cars
Adults may be making all the decisions about self-driving cars and their associated regulations, but Waymo believes kids should have a say in the blossoming technology. That, Waymo announced today, is why it’s partnered with AAA to educate kids about autonomous vehicles and the technology. Not only do the kids get a chance to speak their mind about the technology, but Waymo brought in AAA School Safety Patrol members from a few states to witness how it works.
Alleged Hacker Faces 154 Charges in Football Leaks Case
Portuguese prosecutors are bringing 154 charges against an alleged local hacker they believe is linked to the publication of internal documents that embarrassed top European clubs and soccer officials in the Football Leaks case. A statement from the attorney general’s office Thursday said Rui Pinto, who is in custody in Lisbon after being extradited from Hungary, is accused of alleged crimes connected to the release of secret information about the financial dealings of clubs. The accusations include illegal access to data and attempted extortion.
Vodafone customer account details ‘briefly exposed’ after software update
Vodafone says customers were able to access other people’s account information through its MyVodafone app on Wednesday morning. Spokeswoman Meera Kaushik said the privacy breach followed a planned upgrade to the app at 7am, which resulted in an “unexpected caching issue”. “The upgrade was rolled back within 15 minutes and the caching issue corrected, however it did mean that for a period of time a small number of users were able to see some of the information that customers had entered into their app,” she said.
American Man Jailed in US Over Singapore HIV Data Leak
An American man who leaked confidential details of thousands of HIV-positive people in Singapore, most of them foreigners, has been jailed in the United States for two years. Mikhy Farrera Brochez was convicted by a Kentucky court in June for trying to extort the Singapore government using the stolen data. The 34-year-old had obtained the data from his partner, a senior Singaporean doctor who also helped Brochez conceal his HIV-positive status to get a work permit for the city-state. Confidential information including the names and addresses of 14,200 people diagnosed with the virus that causes AIDS was dumped online.
