Information Technology Security

By Nathan Wasson, Hot Hardware Yesterday, we reported on a data breach at Shields Health Care Group that resulted in the theft of personal information belong to 2 million Americans. Oftentimes, data stolen in breaches like this end up on online forums or marketplaces where cybercriminals buy and sell these ill-gotten gains. Lately, US law enforcement agencies, in collaboration with law enforcement agencies in other countries, have conducted major operations with the goal of shutting down hubs of cybercriminal activity. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the United States Secret Service, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) seized RaidForums back in April. According to the DOJ, RaidForums was home to “more than 10 billion unique records for individuals residing in the United States and internationally." Now, federal law enforcement has shut down SSNDOB Marketplace by seizing the domains of the website and its mirrors. The domains “ssndob.ws,” “ssndob.vip,” “ssndob.club,” an...

By  KrebsOnSecurity Some of more tech-savvy Democrats in the U.S. Senate are asking the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate identity-proofing company ID.me for “deceptive statements” the company and its founder allegedly made over how they handle facial recognition data collected on behalf of the Internal Revenue Service, which until recently required anyone seeking a new IRS account online to provide a live video selfie to ID.me. In a letter to FTC Chair Lina Khan, the Senators charge that ID.me’s CEO Blake Hall has offered conflicting statements about how his company uses the facial scan data it collects on behalf of the federal government and many states that use the ID proofing technology to screen applicants for unemployment insurance. The lawmakers say that in public statements and blog posts, ID.me has frequently emphasized the difference between two types of facial recognition: One-to-one, and one-to-many. In the one-to-one approach, a live video selfie is compare...