Cities and towns continue to be a profitable target for successful ransomware attacks. As we previously reported [view related posts], the list of cities and towns getting hit with ransomware attacks continues to grow. Last week, Jackson County, Georgia admitted that it paid hackers $400,000 to obtain access to its information that was locked down … Continue Reading
The biggest sporting event of the year is now over— and the Patriots, with the help of NFL super duo Tom Brady (the oldest quarterback to ever win the Super Bowl) and Bill Belichick (the oldest head coach to ever win the Super Bowl) took the title—New England’s sixth since 2002. Over 100 million people … Continue Reading
According to reports, a Georgia-based physician who previously pleaded guilty to criminal violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) received six months of probation from a Massachusetts federal judge earlier this week. The physician – a pediatric cardiologist – pleaded guilty in February, 2018 to a misdemeanor count of wrongful disclosure of … Continue Reading
According to reports by WhoWhatWhy and the Associated Press, five security experts have confirmed a private citizen’s allegation that the Georgia Online Voter Database contains a major security flaw and is vulnerable to hackers. According to one of the experts from the University of Michigan, anyone with access to an individual voter’s personal information could … Continue Reading
The month of August saw two federal criminal convictions of individuals involved in significant cyberattacks. In Boston, a federal jury convicted Martin Gottesfeld of one count of conspiracy to intentionally damage a protected computer and one count of intentional damage to protected computers. The charges resulted from 2014 Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks on … Continue Reading
Next week, on August 21, a total solar eclipse (or the alignment of the sun, moon and earth), visible from the continental U.S., will take place for the first time in 38 years. The last time this cosmic event occurred, there were no battery-powered supercomputers—smartphones—in your hand to fly a self-stabilizing, GPS-guided aircraft with a … Continue Reading
This morning, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced an initiative aimed at “examining and strengthening forensic science.” Presumably, the initiative will impact how the DOJ approaches digital forensic evidence in criminal prosecutions. Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein made the announcement at the International Association for Identification’s (IAI) conference in Atlanta, Georgia. The IAI … Continue Reading
Last week, Georgia federal judge, U.S. District Judge Clay D. Land, approved the final order and judgment to settle class action claims that Central Payment Co. LLC (Central Payment) violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) for $6.5 million. Lead plaintiff, Fred Heidarpour, claimed that Central Payment violated the TCPA by hiring third parties to … Continue Reading
Athens Orthopedic Clinic in Georgia reported on July 25, 2016, that a hacker gained access to its electronic medical record system at the end of June using the log-in credentials of a third-party vendor. It has determined that patient records in the electronic medical record system were compromised during the hack and it is in … Continue Reading
Diners who used credit and debit cards at the Tennessee based O’Charley’s restaurants between March 18, 2016, and April 8, 2016, were notified by O’Charley’s of a data breach that affected its point of sale systems. Consumers were also warned by the Georgia Attorney General, who suggested that consumers who dined at the chain monitor … Continue Reading
The filing of fraudulent tax returns continues to be a serious problem in this country. Last year alone, the IRS has admitted that up to 720,000 taxpayers were victims. Last week, a Georgia couple pled guilty to filing fraudulent tax returns by using the IRS’ “Get Transcript” site. The couple used the personal information (including … Continue Reading
The Department of Justice has announced that two hackers who built and sold the Trojan called SpyEye, that caused close to $1 billion in banking losses, have been sentenced for a combined 24 1/2 years in federal court in Atlanta, Georgia. According to evidence presented in Court, provided by the able investigation of the FBI, … Continue Reading
After seemingly endless years of rulemaking, the first decisions applying the amended Federal Rules of Civil Procedure have begun to trickle out. Not surprisingly, there have been no game changers to date, but early signs point to a heavy emphasis on the principles of proportionality, a concept entrenched in the Rules since the 1980s but … Continue Reading
