I’ve heard of forensic investigations but never one claiming psychic powers.

https://mailtribune.com/news/state-news/phishing-scheme-gains-entry-to-oregon-judicial-department-emails

Phishing scheme gains entry to Oregon Judicial Department emails

A phishing scheme succeeded in breaking into the email accounts of five Oregon Judicial Department employees, exposing personal information of more than 6,000 people.

A forensic team determined that none of the information has been used in an inappropriate way so far.

… Lemman said originally a private lawyer had their email account hacked. The hackers gained access to the lawyer’s address book, and sent an email to workers in the state court system. That effort gained entry to a Washington County Circuit Court administrative staffer’s account. The email was then sent to Judicial Department staff, and five employees took the bait. Lemman said he didn’t know if they clicked a link, [Ask! Bob] but said the five entered their usernames and passwords, which hackers were able to access.

… Some of the information deemed “private” by law is also public record, like arrest rosters, he said.

The attackers did not gain access to any of the department’s internal systems. [Except email? Bob]

I bet there was a procedure that did not get followed.

https://blog.knowbe4.com/ai-used-for-social-engineering.-fraudsters-mimic-ceos-voice-in-unusual-cybercrime-case-wsj

AI Used For Social Engineering. Fraudsters Mimic CEO’s Voice in Unusual Cybercrime Case

Catherine Stupp at the Wall Street Journal reported on something we have predicted would happen in this blog. The article started out with:

"Criminals used artificial intelligence-based software to impersonate a chief executive’s voice and demand a fraudulent transfer of €220,000 ($243,000) in March in what cybercrime experts described as an unusual case of artificial intelligence being used in hacking.

"The CEO of a U.K.-based energy firm thought he was speaking on the phone with his boss, the chief executive of the firm’s German parent company, who asked him to send the funds to a Hungarian supplier. The caller said the request was urgent, directing the executive to pay within an hour, according to the company’s insurance firm, Euler Hermes Group SA. Euler Hermes declined to name the victim companies.

Will this type of response become common?

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/08/why-hong-kong-protesters-are-cutting-down-lampposts/597145/?utm_source=feed

Why Hong Kongers Are Toppling Lampposts

The most successful surveillance devices are unobtrusive by nature, which means spotting them is difficult and engaging with them directly can be surreal.

… The Chinese government is notorious for its sophisticated surveillance apparatus, and evading it requires equally sophisticated tactics. Protesters have been hiding their faces with surgical masks and umbrellas, using burner cellphones, and paying for transit in cash. And, for the past month, they’ve also been cutting down lampposts with electric saws.

For my Security Compliance class.

https://www.govinfosecurity.com/google-medical-center-ask-court-to-dismiss-privacy-lawsuit-a-12999

Google, Medical Center Ask Court to Dismiss Privacy Lawsuit

Google and the University of Chicago Medical Center have filed motions to dismiss a class action lawsuit that alleges patients' electronic health records were not properly de-identified by the hospital before they were shared with Google to support the company's predictive medical data analytics technology development efforts.

… The lawsuit filed in an Illinois federal court in June by a former medical center patient notes that HIPAA requires that data shared for research purposes must be de-identified by one of two methods. Those methods include the "expert determination" method to determine if risk of de-identification is small and the "safe harbor" method, which involves removing a long list of identifiers.

The lawsuit alleges that while the medical center claims it de-identified patient records shared with Google, the data included date stamps of when patients checked in and out of the hospital, as well as "copious free-text notes."

As a result, the lawsuit contends, through Google's "prolific data mining ... [the company] is uniquely able to determine the identity of almost every medical record released by the university."

… Legal experts are weighing in on the dispute, seeing merits in the arguments on both sides.