After hacking into Thomson Financial’s computer network to obtain nonpublic financial information about pharmaceutical consultancy IMS Health, a Ukrainian man was ordered by a U.S. judge to pay $580,000 in penalties, according to Reuters News Agency. Just after obtaining the information—and right before an earnings release—Oleksandr Dorozhko purchased 630 put options on IMS’ common stock, [...]

Employees of the Virginia Department of Health Professions received an unwelcome surprise in February, when an anonymous hacker changed the organization’s homepage to a virtual ransom note. According to the online note, the hacker claimed to have stolen 8.3 million patients’ personal information in Virginia, deleted any back up files of the information and demanded [...]

The sentence came in yesterday for a New York man who plead guilty to sending spam email messages to over 1.2 million AOL users in a way that avoided being noticed by the company’s spam filter. The messages were used by

What started off as a media dream story (with the words “Rupert Murdoch,” “employs” and “hacker” all in the same headline) ended on a very anticlimactic, and somewhat humorous, note. Readers might remember the DISH Network lawsuit that hoped to receive nearly $1 billion in damages from

EchoStar Communications, the parent company of DISH Network, filed a corporate espionage lawsuit against News Corp’s NDS Group, alleging that the firm hired one of the “two best hackers in the world” to hack into DISH’s satellite network and steal the company’s security codes, according to a report by Reuters. NDS, which provides various security [...]

Who says random airport searches don’t work? United States customs officials discovered that Hanjuan Jin, 37, a China-born U.S. citizen, was allegedly trying to leak confidential trade secrets from her former U.S. employer to a China-based rival when they searched her luggage at

A Florida man has been found guilty of dishing out company trade secrets from his former employer, Alpha Mining Systems, to competitors. Alpha, a global manufacturer of industrial mining tires, won a $19.7 million judgment against Sam Vance, the company’s former sales and marketing manager. The judge ruled that Vance gave competitors more than enough [...]

Jonathan Evans, the head of the UK’s MI5, recently sent a letter out to 300 British business leaders warning them to be wary of a possible Chinese espionage attack. Since then, the UK’s Times has reported that both Rolls-Royce and Shell have already been hit by “sustained spying assaults” from Chinese government-backed hackers. Rolls-Royce was [...]

MessageLabs Inc, A company designed to protect electronic communications for its business clients, recently discovered a new method for online computer thieves to steal confidential data.  This time the hackers are aimed directly at CEOs.

Mesa Air Group said on Tuesday that CFO Peter Murnane wasn’t deleting important company data when he used special file-erasing software on his three computers. Rather, he was trying to get rid of pornographic material he had collected on the job.

Two Silicon Valley engineers set to go on trial for stealing trade secrets had their charges upgraded on Wednesday to economic espionage. Economic espionage, though rarely charged, is the most serious crime under the 1996 Economic Espionage Act.

Nine months of internal emails were stolen earlier this month from MediaDefender, an anti-piracy firm used by recording companies and Hollywood studios. A group devoted to countering anti-piracy measures, aptly named MediaDefender-Defenders, claimed responsibility for the theft. After obtaining the documents, MediaDefender-Defenders dispersed the emails digitally through peer-to-peer programs. Now the emails are posted on [...]

What happened to the good old days, when employees just raided the supply closet? Fidelity National reported that the personal data of as many as 8.5 million customers was taken by a senior database administrator at the company. The company suggested that this number, up from initial reports from Fidelity of 2.3 million, may be [...]

Casual Male won a $1.5 million settlement against both a former associate and a competitor. A jury determined that Robert Yarbrough broke his contract with the company after he violated non-competition obligations and leaked company secrets. He was charged with $1.1 million in damages. Westport Big & Tall, a competitor of Casual Male, was charged [...]

It’s really hard to close the barn door AFTER the cow has left, but that is what the FTC is trying to do. The Federal Trade Commission accidentally disclosed confidential trade secrets of Whole Foods yesterday in a court filing. At issue was that in trying to protect competitive secrets, court officials didn’t sufficiently “black [...]

A Long Island man pleaded guilty on Wednesday of conspiring to destroy a rival company’s product. Robert A. Schetty, III, 42, a vice president of Technic, Inc., coordinated an attempt to place hydrogen peroxide in a bath of chemicals used by rival company Rohm and Haas, Co. to test their new electroplating solution. Technic sells [...]

Online virtual worlds like “Second Life” continue to grow at a rapid clip. Commerce, business meetings, and other far racier ‘encounters’ are becoming more commonplace in these virtual worlds. To help protect its reputation, IBM announced this week that it was establishing a code of conduct to govern its more than 5,000 employees who have [...]

According to media reports and court filings, a hedge fund trader has pled guilty to buying and selling stocks based on tips about changes in UBS’s analyst stock ratings. The trader, Mark Lenowitz used inside information about planned ratings changes when he traded securities at hedge funds Chelsey Capital and Q Capital Investment Partners. Lenowitz [...]

A former Pfizer employee is trying to get a class action lawsuit filed against the company after 17,000 of Pfizer’s employees had sensitive personal information posted online by a third party. The information included names, social security numbers, cell phone numbers and “bonus information”. The suit is asking for Pfizer to provide long-term identity theft [...]