data

(Reuters) – Verizon Communications Inc said an attacker had exploited a security vulnerability on its enterprise client portal to steal contact information of a number of customers. The company said the attacker however did not gain access to Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) or other data. Krebs On Security, which first broke the news of the breach, said a member of a underground cybercrime forum had posted a new thread advertising the sale of a database containing the contact information on some 1.5 million customers of Verizon Enterprise.

By Dustin Volz WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Facebook Inc prohibited global users from coordinating person-to-person private sales of firearms on its online social network and its Instagram photo-sharing service on Friday, countering concerns that it was increasingly being used to circumvent background checks on gun purchases. U.S. President Barack Obama has urged social media companies to clamp down on gun sales organized on their platforms. It updates Facebook's regulated goods policy, introduced in March 2014, that banned people from selling marijuana, pharmaceuticals and illegal drugs.

By Alastair Sharp and Josephine Mason TORONTO (Reuters) – Emails sent by the founder of infidelity website AshleyMadison.com appear to have been exposed in a second, larger release of data stolen from its parent company, cyber security experts confirmed on Thursday. The data dump by hackers who have attacked the site appears to include email messages linked to Noel Biderman, founder and chief executive officer of its Toronto-based parent company Avid Life Media. In a message accompanying the release, the hackers said: “Hey Noel, you can admit it's real now.” That appeared to be a riposte to the company's initial response to Tuesday's dump that the data may not be authentic.

The Obama administration on Wednesday launched the first-ever sanctions program to financially punish individuals and groups outside the United States that are engaged in malicious cyber attacks. U.S. President Barack, in an executive order, declared such activities a “national emergency” and allowed the U.S. Treasury to freeze the assets and bar other financial transactions of entities engaged in cyber attacks. Under the program, first reported by the Washington Post, cyber attackers or those who conduct commercial espionage in cyberspace can be listed on the official sanctions list of specially designated nationals, a deterrent long-sought by the cyber community. The move, which the paper said has been in development for two years, comes after a string of high-profile cyber attacks ranging from corporate hacks targeting Target, Home Depot and other retailers, to an attack on Sony and other data breaches.

By Lindsay Dunsmuir WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two Vietnamese citizens and a Canadian have been charged over roles in hacking email service providers in the United States in one of the largest reported data breaches in the nation's history, the Department of Justice said on Friday. Viet Quoc Nguyen, 28, is charged with hacking at least eight email service providers between February 2009 and June 2012 and obtaining more than one billion email addresses. According to the allegations, Nguyen and fellow Vietnamese citizen Giang Hoang Vu, 25, used the data to send so-called spam to tens of millions of people. Vu, who was extradited to the United States in March of last year, pleaded guilty on Thursday to conspiracy to commit computer fraud.