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[Dataloss] Virus causes data breach at state websites
From: Jake Kouns <jkouns () opensecurityfoundation org>
Date: Tue, 17 May 2011 17:03:44 -0400
http://www.boston.com/business/ticker/2011/05/virus_causes_da.html Personal information about an unknown number of Massachusetts residents may have been stolen from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, after hundreds of the agency's computers were infected with a computer worm. "Unfortunately, like many government and non-government organizations we were targeted by criminal hackers who penetrated our system with a new strain of a virus," said Joanne F. Goldstein, the commonwealth's secretary of labor and workforce development, in a statement released this afternoon. "All steps possible are being taken to avoid any future recurrence.” About 1,500 computers in the departments of Unemployment Assistance and Career Services and at the state's One Stop Career Centers were infected with a computer virus called W32.QAKBOT, which is designed to allow an attacker to take control of infected computers and to steal information stored on the machines. The agency first detected the presence of the virus on April 20, and took immediate steps to disinfect its machines. But yesterday, the agency said that the virus "was not remediated as originally believed and that the persistence of the virus resulted in a data breach." _______________________________________________ Dataloss Mailing List (dataloss () datalossdb org) Archived at http://seclists.org/dataloss/ Unsubscribe at http://datalossdb.org/mailing_list Learn encryption strategies that manage risk and shore up compliance. Download Article 1 of CREDANT Technologies' The Essentials Series: Endpoint Data Encryption That Actually Works http://credant.com/campaigns/realtime2/gap-LP1/ _______________________________________________ Dataloss-discuss Mailing List (dataloss-discuss () datalossdb org) Archived at http://seclists.org/dataloss/ Unsubscribe at http://datalossdb.org/mailing_list Learn encryption strategies that manage risk and shore up compliance. Download Article 1 of CREDANT Technologies' The Essentials Series: Endpoint Data Encryption That Actually Works http://credant.com/campaigns/realtime2/gap-LP1/
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- [Dataloss] Virus causes data breach at state websites Jake Kouns (May 23)