Breaches Update – June 2015

by Jim Bulling and Julia Baldi

U.S. Office of Personal Management Breach
The U.S.Government’s Office of Personal Management announced that its database has been subject to a cybersecurity breach. Hackers stole data relating to federal government employees dating back three decades and may effect more than four million people.

See the ABC report here and Forbes report here.

The OPM is offering affected individuals credit monitoring services and identity theft insurance. See the OPM announcement here.

Kaspersky Lab
Kaspersky Lab, a Moscow based cybersecurity firm responsible for the security of many government and multi-national companies, announced that it has been hit by a cyber attack. An audit of Kaspersky’s systems suggested that the attack was targeted at Kaspersky’s technology and research rather than access to no personal information of clients.

See the Kaspersky media release here.

Samsung
Up to 600 million Samsung mobile phones around the world may be vulnerable to attack due to a software bug in the phone’s keyboard software.

See the ABC report here.

Codan
CRN has published an article outlining the impact of a cyber breach on Codan, an Australian mining technology firm. The article highlights that companies need to protect their own intellectual property, not just client personal information.

Codan had its intellectual property, including plans and specifics of new technology, stolen by hackers in 2011. This resulted in counterfeits of their technology being distributed around the world. Codan was forced to halve the prices of some technology to compete with these counterfeiters and had its annual net profits fall by more AUD30 million over the course of 12 months.

See the full report here.

Australia Federal Police (AFP) Cyber Attack Reports
The AFP reported that more than 3,500 cyber attacks on Australia from foreign countries and criminals were reported in April, a number which is considered likely to increase.

See the ABC report here.