Information Technology

Australian Attorney-General Christian Porter announced on Friday the permanent appointment of Grant Donaldson as the fourth Independent National Security Legislation Monitor (INSLM).
Donaldson was Solicitor-General for Western Australia between 2012 and 2016, and has been acting in the new role since July while arrangements for his permanent appointment took place.
As the name suggests, INSLM looks into the operation and effectiveness of Australia’s national security and counter-terrorism laws.
In his final report before retiring, former INSLM Dr James Renwick recommended Australia create an independent body to oversee approval of warrants for the nation’s encryption-busting legislation, the Telecommunications and other Legislation Amendment (Assistance & Access) Act 2018 (TOLA Act).
Renwick had flagged at the start of the year that he would not be recommending the laws be overturned.
In August, the Australian Federal Police said it used the voluntary powers in the law, where law-enforcement ask carriers for assistance, three times in the 2019-20 fiscal year.
“Our experience is that Schedule 1 of TOLA has accelerated cooperation from industry, with providers increasingly willing to assist due to TOLA providing legal certainties and assurances regarding the commercial scope and impact of requests,” the AFP said at the time.

“The fact the AFP has not sought any [compulsory notices] to date, does not indicate these provisions are not required. Rather, it demonstrates the effectiveness of TOLA’s tiered approach.”
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Image: Stefan Schranz
The personal and health information of more than 16 million Brazilian COVID-19 patients has been leaked online after a hospital employee uploaded a spreadsheet with usernames, passwords, and access keys to sensitive government systems on GitHub this month.

Among the systems that had credentials exposed were E-SUS-VE and Sivep-Gripe, two government databases used to store data on COVID-19 patients.
E-SUS-VE was used for recording COVID-19 patients with mild symptoms, while Sivep-Gripe was used to keep track of hospitalized cases.
The two databases contained sensitive details such as patient names, addresses, ID information, but also healthcare records such as medical history and medication regimes.
The leak came to light after a GitHub user spotted the spreadsheet containing the passwords on the personal GitHub account of an employee of the Albert Einstein Hospital in the city of Sao Paolo.
The user later notified Brazilian newspaper Estadao, which analyzed the data and notified the hospital and the Brazilian Ministry of Health.
Estadao reporters said that data for Brazilians across all 27 states was included in the two databases, including high profile figures like the country’s president Jair Bolsonaro, the president’s family, seven government ministers, and the governors of 17 Brazilian states.

The spreadsheet was ultimately removed from GitHub while government officials changed passwords and revoked access keys to resecure their systems.
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, several governments and government contractors have had problems securing their COVID-19-related apps and databases.
Vulnerabilities and leaks were discovered in COVID-19 apps and systems used in Germany [1, 2], Wales, New Zealand, India, and others.
According to research published by Intertrust this September, around 85% of COVID-19 contact tracing apps leak data in one way or another. More

UK-based cyber-security vendor Sophos is currently notifying customers via email about a security breach the company suffered earlier this week.

“On November 24, 2020, Sophos was advised of an access permission issue in a tool used to store information on customers who have contacted Sophos Support,” the company said in an email sent to customers and obtained by ZDNet.
Exposed information included details such as customer first and last names, email addresses, and phone numbers (if provided).
A Sophos spokesperson confirmed the emails earlier today and told ZDNet that only a “small subset” of the company’s customers were affected but did not provide an approximate number.
Sophos said it learned of the misconfiguration from a security researcher and fixed the reported issue right away.
“At Sophos, customer privacy and security are always our top priority. We are contacting all affected customers,” the company said. “Additionally, we are implementing additional measures to ensure access permission settings are continuously secure. ”
This is the second major security incident Sophos has dealt with this year. In April, a cybercrime group discovered and abused a zero-day in the Sophos XG firewall to breach companies across the world. The attackers deployed the Asnarok trojan, and once the zero-day was publicly disclosed, they attempted to deploy ransomware — but eventually failed.

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