Virus Causes Data Breach at Massachusetts Unemployment Agency

eWeek, By Fahmida Y. Rashid

Cyber-criminals may have used malware to steal personal information from the Massachusetts unemployment offices, according to the state agency.

As many as 1,500 computers in the Departments of Unemployment Assistance and Career Services were infected with a virus beginning April 20, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development said on May 17. Computers in the mobile One Stop Career Centers that work with claimants were also infected.

Even though EOLWD immediately worked with Symantec to remove the malware, W32.QAKBOT, it learned on May 16 that the infection hadn’t been “remediated as originally believed,” leading to a data breach...

“These days, whenever I hear of a big corporate infection that’s very hard to get rid of and people are struggling, I immediately think of Qakbot,” Roel Schouwenberg, an antivirus researcher at Kaspersky Lab, told WBUR, a Boston NPR radio station.

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