The data of 80 thousand Transavia passengers leaked out after an e-mail inbox containing the data was breached, the Dutch low-cost flyer said on Monday. The data that was released includes passengers’ full names, date of birth, flight information, booking number, luggage purchase, and additionally requested services like wheelchair assistance.
The KLM subsidiary said the data was in a file in the mailbox, but it did not say why the years-old passenger information was being kept that way.
Companies and institutions reported nearly 27 thousand data breaches to the Dutch Data Protection Authority last year, an increase of 29 percent compared to 2018. Most of the leaks came from companies in the financial sector. The number of data leaks due to cyber attacks also increased, especially in the case of ransomware, NOS reports.
"We are seeing a huge increase in data breaches," Monique Verdier of the Dutch Data Protection Authority said to the broadcaster. "Last year we also saw a quarter more reports of attacks such as ransomware."
Personnel data from a fruit wholesaler in Hedel, Gelderland accidentally ended up in the criminal file of a major cocaine investigation, the Public Prosecution Service in Oost-Nederland confirmed. In a statement, the Prosecutor said it regrets the state of affairs, stressing that there have never been indications that people were in immediate danger. Nevertheless, dozens of employees of the wholesaler are terrified of reprisals from the criminal underworld, RTL Nieuws reports.
The account details of the 250 thousand users of Dutch website Hookers.nl have leaked out after a vulnerability on the website was exploited. A hacker captured the members' data and is offering it for sale, NOS reports based on its own research after an anonymous tip. The website is popular among clients of sex workers, who exchange tips, reviews and experiences in the sex industry.
The problem extends beyond clients of sex workers. Sex workers themselves are also active on the website. They also may want to not be known as a sex worker with their real names.
For years students with a part-time job at Amsterdam hospital OLVG had access to confidential and very personal patient files. This involved almost all patients who visited the hospital over the past 15 years, the Volkskrant reports. The hospital confirmed the leak to the newspaper.
The leak was discovered in August last year by a philosophy student who answered the phone and made appointments for the hospital's outpatient clinic. She informed the management of the hospital that she could see all of the patients' confidential medical information.
Last year nearly 21 thousand data leaks were reported to the Dutch Data Protection Authority, more than double than the number of leaks reported in 2017 and three times more than were reported in 2016, ANP reports.
That does not necessarily mean that there were more leaks - the Authority can't say how many leaks went unreported. Organizations that discover a leak are obliged to report it to the privacy watchdog as soon as possible, but this does not mean everyone does so or that all leaks are discovered.
A data leak affecting the municipality of Amsterdam revealed the names and addresses of residents upset about the city’s home share policy. In one case a phone number was also leaked, AT5 reports.
The data was not recorded on the municipality's website in an unrecognizable way, according to the Amsterdam broadcaster. Around 10 Amsterdam residents were affected by the leak. Whether the data was misused is unclear.
The Dutch Personal Data Authority fined Uber 600 thousand euros for not reporting a major data leak in 2016 in time. The leak meant that unauthorized persons had access to millions of Uber customers' and drivers' personal data, the Authority said on Tuesday, NU.nl reports.
The Ministry of Defense temporarily made it impossible to install sports- and fitness apps on Defense phones, Defense Minister Ank Bijleveld told parliament on Sunday after it was revealed that personal data can easily be obtained from the Polar fitness app, ANP reports.
"Private data of military personnel, civilian staff and in particular intelligence services are out on the streets, at home and abroad", Bijleveld said. "The ministry repeatedly reminded staff of the specific vulnerability of such apps."
Booking site Ticketmaster was hit by a data breach and the "personal or payment details" of some customers may have been accessible to unknown parties, the company reported in an email to its customers. There is no evidence that Dutch customers were affected by the breach, but Dutch still received an email from the company advising them to change passwords as a precaution, a spokesperson for Ticketmaster said to NOS.
A search engine showing 1.4 billion of leaked or hacked passwords, including those of some 3.3 million Dutch, is officially online. On Gotcha.pw Dutch people can now check whether their password was stolen by searching for their email address. If there is a leaked password associated with that email address, the site shows the first two characters of the password, NU.nl reports.
A large number of emails and some 3.3 million passwords of Dutch people can be found easily online through a special search engine, newspaper AD discovered on Friday. The emails and passwords of employees of manly large Dutch organizations, companies and government institutions are found on this search engines, including of organizations that fulfill a vital function, the newspaper writes.
The personal data of around 174 thousand Dutch Uber customers and drivers was stolen in a hack that hit the taxi company late last year, Uber announced on Tuesday. The hack was only reported last month, NU.nl reports.
According to Uber, the number of affected Dutch is only an estimate, because it is not always clear from which country users of the service are.
An important department of the Dutch Tax Authority did not properly handle personal data of citizens and companies, according to several investigations into security in the Data & Analytics Department. As a result, the personal data of tens of thousands of Dutch leaked in various ways, including being sent to third parties or taken home by employees. The investigations also found that tax employees searched for information about individual tax payers, RTL Nieuws reports.
A data leak at software company CarWise ICT meant that information of thousands of Dutch lease drivers was easily accessible to unauthorized parties. The leak was discovered by security company ESET, director Dave Maasland confirmed to NU.nl. Maasland estimates that at least 100 thousand customers were affected.
The Dutch National Charity Lotteries issued an apology because a data leak resulted in details of 450 thousand players being accessible to hackers. About 900 players' bank account numbers were also visible. This involves participants of the Nationale Postcode Loterij, VriendenLoterij and the Bank Giro Loterij, NU.nl reports.
The court in Amsterdam left thousands of pages of confidential documents behind when it left the building for major renovations, the Telegraaf reports. Construction workers brought these documents to the newspaper.
The construction workers found the documents while working on the court's renovation. According to the newspaper, it involves thousands of pages that contain, among other things, information on pending criminal cases, recently launched police investigations and names and address details of witnesses and defendants.
A data leak from Dutch voting guide Stemwijzer, the only one online as yet, revealed which parties are most often recommended to people. After answering 30 questions, most people got the PVV recommended to them, followed by the PvdA. GeenPeil and Forum voor Democratie are at the bottom of the list.
Television program Zembla managed to get hold of more than 700 pages of confidential information from Europol. The data is mostly from the period 2006 to 2008 and consists of hundreds of names and telephone numbers of people associated with terrorsim at that time. It also includes an analysis of the so-called Hofstad Group and the Madrid bombings, NU.nl reports.
Hackers managed to break into the municipality of Almelo's servers and steal some 20 gigabytes of data. The exact data stolen is unclear, though it is "almost certain" that personal information was among it
The personal data of thousands of Utrecht residents was available for anyone to look at due to a so-called data leak at the municipality of Utrecht earlier this year, the Telegraaf reports based on documents received through the Freedom of Information Act.
A data leak which exposed personal details such as names, addresses and bank account numbers of national public transportation card users has since been fixed, the card's management team said. The problems were first reported over the weekend, and they were patched up on Tuesday, a spokesman for Trans Link Systems told De Telegraaf.
