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DataBank: Threat Report

DES MOINES, IOWA – Cybercriminals raided the online bank account of St. Ambrose Cathedral and stole $680,000 that had been raised to help the homeless and abused women. The stolen funds were eventually covered by insurance and the church's bank.

HONOLULU – Law enforcement officials and information technology experts asked state lawmakers for tougher cybercrime laws and more resources to fight internet criminals. Internet service providers often do not retain records of text messages and emails, making it difficult to track down cybercriminals, prosecutors have said.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A team of law enforcement, emergency planners, academics and private businesses have formed to improve cybersecurity in the state, officials recently announced. The Rhode Island Cyber Disruption Team is tasked with identifying weaknesses in the state's cyber infrastructure and acting as a resource in the event of a cyber crisis.

SEATTLE – Nonprofit health care provider Swedish Medical Center is alerting 20,000 current and former employees that their personal information was breached. A hospital employee working at home made accidental changes to his personal network that caused the data to be accessible online, where it remained for nine weeks.

ONTARIO, CANADA – Records containing the personal health information of nearly 12,000 Ontario citizens who participated in the province's colon cancer screening program may have gone missing in the mail. Cancer Care Ontario, the agency charged with improving cancer services, cannot confirm if data was delivered to its intended recipients.



AUSTRIA – Hackers compromised the agency responsible for collecting state television fees to steal 214,000 files, including 96,000 that contain sensitive bank data. A spokesman for the agency blamed the intrusion on a group of hackers related to the activist collective Anonymous.
 
JAPAN – A 38-year-old man is the first person to be arrested under the nation's recently passed anti-malware law. Yasuhiro Kawaguchi was charged with storing malware on his computer, and he faces up to two years in prison. Authorities believe he created the virus to infect users of file-sharing services.
 
KENYA – The nation has created a team whose mission is to coordinate the response to national cybersecurity events. The Kenya Computer Incident Response Team (KE-CIRT) speaks to a growing wave of digital crimes in Africa, spurred by an explosion of broadband-enabled internet use.
 
INDIA – The secretary of the nation's Department of Information Technology and the deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security signed a memorandum of understanding that establishes best practices for the exchange of information and expertise related to cybersecurity.
 
ITALY – The Anonymous group infiltrated the entity tasked with protecting the country's critical IT infrastructure to steal eight gigabytes of data. The hackers, possibly motivated by the arrests of fellow Anonymous members, posted the documents, which included evidence related to investigations, on Pastebin.

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