Privacy Roundup #0214 • May 2024
May 2024 was dominated by the Snowflake breach wave and a fierce backlash against artificial intelligence features that quietly harvest personal data.
1. Dell partner portal API abused to steal 49 million customer records
A criminal registered fake partner accounts and hammered an unrated Dell portal API to scrape names, addresses and order details for roughly 49 million people. Dell began emailing affected customers in early May and stressed that no payment data was taken.
2. Ascension ransomware attack forces hospitals onto pen and paper
A ransomware intrusion detected on 8 May knocked out electronic health records across Ascension's 142 hospitals, forcing staff to divert ambulances and track medication by hand. Nurses and doctors warned that the outage put patients at real risk while the network was slowly restored.
3. UK confirms Ministry of Defence payroll data exposed in breach
The UK government confirmed that a contractor-run armed forces payment network was compromised, exposing names, bank details and some addresses of about 270,000 serving personnel, reservists and veterans. Ministers pointed to potential failings by the contractor that may have eased the intruder's access.
4. Slack under attack over sneaky AI training policy
Users discovered that Slack had opted them into training its machine learning models on messages and files by default, with opt-out buried behind an email request. The disclosure prompted a public outcry and forced Salesforce to rewrite the confusing privacy language.
5. Microsoft's Windows Recall feature branded a privacy minefield
Microsoft unveiled Recall, a Windows tool that screenshots everything on screen every few seconds into a searchable local database. Security researchers warned it would capture passwords and banking details, and the backlash forced Microsoft to make the feature opt-in.
6. EU Council gives final green light to the AI Act
On 21 May the Council of the European Union granted final approval to the AI Act, the first comprehensive law of its kind anywhere in the world. It bans uses deemed an unacceptable risk, such as social scoring, and imposes strict rules on higher-risk systems.
7. Operation Endgame dismantles malware dropper ecosystem
Police across Europe and the United States announced the largest ever action against botnets, taking down more than 100 servers and arresting four people. The coordinated effort disrupted dropper malware families including IcedID, Smokeloader, Pikabot and Bumblebee.
8. Hacking group claims breach of 560 million Ticketmaster customers
The ShinyHunters group claimed to have stolen 1.3 terabytes of Ticketmaster data covering roughly 560 million people, offering it for sale online. The records traced back to a third-party cloud database, part of the wider campaign against poorly secured Snowflake accounts.
9. Christie's confirms breach after RansomHub threatens to leak data
The auction house Christie's confirmed a data breach after the RansomHub gang added it to a dark web extortion site and threatened to publish stolen client information. The criminals claimed to hold identity documents belonging to around 500,000 private clients.
10. Snowflake denies that the reported breach originated with its products
As the campaign against its customers widened, Snowflake denied that any vulnerability in its platform caused the breaches at firms such as Ticketmaster and Santander. The company instead pointed to compromised customer credentials and accounts that lacked multi-factor authentication.
11. EFF adds Bluetooth to the long list of border surveillance technologies
The Electronic Frontier Foundation revealed that Bluetooth trackers and scanners had joined the growing arsenal of surveillance technology deployed along the United States and Mexico border. The findings showed how everyday wireless signals can quietly map the movements of travellers and residents.
12. Why your Wi-Fi router doubles as an Apple AirTag
University of Maryland researchers showed that Apple's Wi-Fi location service could be queried to map billions of routers worldwide and track devices without consent. They traced sensitive movements including Starlink terminals in Ukraine and Gaza, exposing a global tracking risk.
13. Investigation exposes Stark Industries as a hub for Kremlin cyberattacks
A detailed investigation traced the ownership of Stark Industries Solutions, a bulletproof hosting provider that appeared just before Russia invaded Ukraine. The firm served as a staging ground for repeated cyberattacks and disinformation operations across Europe.
14. United States charges Russian man as boss of LockBit ransomware group
American prosecutors named and charged a Russian national as the leader of LockBit, one of the most prolific ransomware operations in the world. The indictment followed an international effort to disrupt the gang's infrastructure and unmask its operators.
15. Treasury sanctions creators of the 911 S5 proxy botnet
The United States Treasury sanctioned three Chinese nationals accused of running 911 S5, a proxy service built on a vast botnet of compromised computers. Authorities said the service let criminals route malicious traffic and commit fraud worth billions.
16. First American discloses cyberattack affecting 44,000 people
The mortgage and title insurance giant First American told regulators that a December cyberattack had exposed personal information belonging to roughly 44,000 individuals. The company concluded its investigation and offered affected people credit monitoring.
17. European Parliament uncovers breach of its recruitment platform
The European Parliament told staff that its PEOPLE recruitment application had been breached, exposing identity documents and sensitive records for more than 8,000 candidates. The flaw went unnoticed for months and surfaced as the institution hardened security before the June elections.
18. Vermont legislature passes data privacy bill with a right to sue
Vermont lawmakers passed a comprehensive privacy bill that would let residents sue data brokers and large data holders for misusing their personal information. Consumer advocates praised the private right of action as a possible turning point for state privacy law.
19. Santander employee data exposed in Snowflake customer breach
Banco Santander confirmed that a third-party database had been accessed, exposing data on customers in Spain, Chile and Uruguay along with current and former staff. The intrusion formed part of the wider attack on poorly protected Snowflake accounts.
20. Is your computer part of the largest botnet ever?
Following the 911 S5 takedown, investigators detailed how millions of Windows machines had been quietly conscripted into the proxy network through tainted free software. Users were urged to check whether their devices had become part of the sprawling criminal infrastructure.
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