from the this-is-why-I-don't-do-infosec dept.
Teen charged with illegally accessing publicly accessible documents over government web portal:
A 19 year old teenager was charged with 'unauthorized use of a computer' after downloading over 7,000 records from the Nova Scotia Freedom-of-Information web portal. The teenager whose name has not been released, has been accused of stealing documents from the portal, with many of them being publicly accessible and redacted.
Between March 3rd and 5th of 2018, approximately 7,000 documents containing sensitive information including birth dates, social insurance numbers, addresses, and client information related to government services were stated to be illegally accessed.
Nova Scotians were only notified of the breach a week after it had been discovered and last week a Halifax teenager was arrested and charged in relation to the incident. If found guilty, he could face up to 10 years in prison.
