Hackers Paradox

Dixons Carphone today admitted that the data breach it discovered last month affected nine times as many people as first believed. The retailer 'fessed up to the hack in June this year, saying that it had involved 5.9 million payment cards and 1.2 million personal data records. However, in a statement  issued today  (PDF), Dixons Carphone revised this number, saying about 10 million records may have been accessed. The firm said that it now had evidence that "some of this data may have left our systems", but that the records don't contain payment card or bank account details. "There is no evidence that any fraud has resulted," it added. The biz – which owns Carphone Warehouse and Currys PC World – has now nearly completed a full investigation of the unauthorised access that it said took place in 2017. As a result, Dixons Carphone said it was contacting all of its customers "as a precaution" to apologise and advise them on how to reduce the risk

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has published the first full quarter report on data breaches that fall under Notifiable Data Breaches scheme and, thus, had to be reported to the OAIC. “The NDB scheme applies to agencies and organisations that the Privacy Act requires to take reasonable steps to secure personal information. This includes most Australian Government agencies, businesses and not-for-profit organisations with an annual turnover of $3 million or more, credit reporting bodies, private health service providers, and TFN [tax file number] recipients, among others,” the OAIC explained. The  report  encompasses 242 data breaches reported between 1 April and 30 June 2018. Data breach statistics The analysis of the reports reveals that 59 percent of those breaches were caused by malicious or criminals attacks, 36 percent by human error, and 5 percent by system faults. “Many cyber incidents in this quarter appear to have exploited vulnerabilities invo

Hewlett-Packard  hopes to entice researchers with a $10,000 reward for finding vulnerabilities in printers. The tech giant revealed the new bug bounty program on Tuesday. The scheme, which is launching as a private bug bounty, is tailored specifically for HP printer hardware. While many of us use home printers simply for printing the occasional document or photo, in the enterprise, these devices are often found in a network. MORE SECURITY NEWS Senator proposes Google, Facebook outline what your data is worth to their platforms US government's "do not buy" list shuts out Russia, China Why you're using Tor wrong New Spectre attack can remotely steal secrets, researchers say