The University of California at San Diego announced this week that hackers have again broken into their computer system, compromising the personal data of thousands of UCSD students, staff, and faculty. The UCSD machines which the hackers accessed contained the trifecta payload of social security numbers, drivers license numbers, and…

Following this year’s rash of personal data security breaches, starting with the ChoicePoint and Lexis-Nexis leaks, and culiminating with the CardSystems hack and exposure of the credit card information of more than 40million customers, Democratic Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy has teamed up with Republican Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter to introduce…

As Aunty reported last week, the personal data of 40 million consumers was compromised when CardSystems Solutions had their computer system hacked. CardSystems provides back-end processing for MasterCard and Visa transactions. Now a lawsuit has been filed in San Francisco against CardSystems, requesting that they be required to notify all…

In case you were listening to the radio or televion news today, yes, you heard it right, and your ears were not deceiving you. The credit card information of 40 million MasterCard and Visa cardholders was compromised when someone hacked into the computers of Arizona-based CardSystems Solutions. 40 million. That…

A mock trial, in which ISPs were sued for damage done by a zombie network to a few fictitious companies’ business and financial interests, found that a jury of IT professionals overwhelmingly held the opinion that the ISPs were not responsible for the damage flowing from their networks via the…

Gary McKinnon, Nasa’s ET hacker, has been arrested in London.

Online security company Secunia has said this week that versions of Firefox and Mozilla, as well as the lesser known Camino, are again at risk for a frame injection security flaw which has dogged Mozilla on and off for nearly seven years. The problem, which plagues Firefox versions 1.x, Mozilla…

Talk about spyware versus spyware. Authorities in Isreal have arrested dozens of people, including high level executives of multinational corporations, in what increasingly is developing into the Internet Trojan spyware custerfluck of the year. Only on the Internet can a Trojan horse disgorge its contents in several places at once,…

Stanford University has joined that special inner circle – no, not the top tier schools – those which have had their computer systems hacked and data compromised. Earlier this month a hacker broke in to the Stanford Career Development Center’s computer, compromising the personal information of nearly 10,000 individuals, including…

Federal authorities are investigating what they have dubbed an “Internet infection” which holds personal computer files hostage for ransom. This Internet infection is the first known instance of a virus or other malware which gets onto your computer, locks up your files, and then leaves behind a digital ransom note demanding $200 if you ever want to see your files again.

In what may be the biggest leak of personal data to date, police are reporting that a whopping 676,000 bank customers have had their personal information stolen from Bank of America, Wachovia, Commerce Bancorp, and PNC Financial Services. B of A has already notified over 60,000 customers that their confidential…

Groups and individuals being dubbed as Internet vigilantes are taking matters into their own hands when it comes to phishers and their phishy sites, and are using their hacking powers for good (they would argue) by hacking into phishing sites and defacing and mutilating them in some fashion so as…

As many of the Internet Patrol’s regular readers know, Paris Hilton’s Sidekick was hacked, and the data was posted to the Internet, several months ago. And they also know that one Nicholas Lee Jacobsen pleaded guilty to the T-Mobile hacking which is assumed to have lead to Miss Hilton’s Sidekick account being hacked.

That gaping hole in Tiger’s Dashboard is no air vent – it’s a wide-open, highly exploitable security threat for users of Apple’s newest version of OS X for Mac. And we have Stephan.com’s Zaptastic and Goatse widgets to thank for showing us the big hole. For those of you who…

Aunty told you about wifi hotspot evil twins, but you didn’t quite believe her, did you? Well, attendees of the Wireless LAN Event in England this past week are believers now, after hackers infiltrated the conference, and set up an evil twin hotspot right there at the conference, in a…