Massive E-mail Hack of LA County is the Latest Phishing Scam in US
Officials said that one Nigerian national was charged for hacking emails of Los Angeles (L.A.) County, which may have exposed the personal information of over 750,000 people having business with the county departments.
As per D.A.'s office, criminal charges were filed by the District Attorney of L.A. County against a citizen of Nigeria, who was blamed for launching phishing attack on the county employees.
As per the Chief Executive's office of L.A. County, 37 year old Kelvin Onaghinor faces 9 counts including identity theft and illegal computer access. theguardian.com posted on December 18th, 2016, stating that he was not arrested and officials were unsure whether he is on the US soil.
Last week, Yahoo said that it has found proof of a huge hack from the year 2013, which compromised personal credentials of over one billion users of the site. As per the company, breach was probably different from the attack of late-2014 which affected over 500 Mn accounts and might was work of "state-sponsored actor."
Authorities are looking for other suspects in hack that happened in May, when phishing email deceives 108 county employees in providing passwords and usernames.
As per officials, some employees had "confidential client/patient information" in their e-mail accounts through their county responsibilities. On Saturday, Daily News report that forensic examination revealed that around 756,000 individuals might are affected from their contact with many departments.
Till Friday, no proof was there of any release of confidential information due to the breach. However, officials started informing people on Thursday that the personal credentials are exposed and may got compromised.
The information might have included initial and last names, social security numbers, DOB (Date Of Birth), driving license or state identification numbers, home addresses, payment card details, bank account details, phone numbers, and/or medical details like Medi-Cal or insurance carrier identification numbers, treatment history, medical record numbers or diagnosis.
Free of charge identity monitoring is offered by the county to those who might are exposed, including identity consultation, identity restoration and credit monitoring.
Alleged hacker, Onaghinor, faces 13 yrs. imprisonment in California jail, if convicted.
ยป SPAMfighter News - 12/22/2016
