Latest news with #ComputerFraudandAbuseAct
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Capital One must face social media creators' lawsuit alleging stolen commissions
By Jonathan Stempel (Reuters) -Capital One must face a lawsuit by social media creators who said the bank's free browser extension stole their sales commissions when consumers bought their products and services. In a Monday night decision, U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga in Alexandria, Virginia said creators plausibly alleged that Capital One knew or should have known that it diverted their commissions by overriding tracking codes that showed consumers had seen their content. The proposed class action involves affiliate marketing, where creators promote content through links that appear on their platforms and social media channels, and are provided by online merchants and third-party marketers. Creators said the Capital One Shopping browser extension, used by more than 10 million people to find discounts, made it appear at checkout as though consumers made purchases from merchants' sites after clicking referral links from the bank. They said this let McLean, Virginia-based Capital One collect millions of dollars of commissions that bloggers, influencers, YouTubers and other creators had "rightfully earned". Trenga said creators can pursue claims that Capital One was unjustly enriched, interfered with their contracts and ability to make money, and violated the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. He dismissed a conversion claim and four state law claims. Capital One did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday. In seeking a dismissal, the bank said it was up to merchants to decide how to allocate commissions. It also said the lawsuit reflected creators' frustration that merchants "do not always share their view that they did all the work." Norman Siegel, a lawyer for the creators, said they looked forward to continuing to prosecute their case. Microsoft and PayPal face similar litigation over their Microsoft Shopping and PayPal Honey extensions. Capital One is the sixth-largest U.S. commercial bank by assets, after buying Discover Financial Services in May. It acquired its browser extension when it bought online shopping startup Wikibuy in 2018. The case is In re Capital One Financial Corp, Affiliate Marketing Litigation, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Virginia, No. 25-00023.
Hindustan Times
07-05-2025
- Business
- Hindustan Times
Meta wins $167 million in damages from NSO group over Pegasus spyware
A US jury has ordered NSO Group, the company behind the notorious Pegasus spyware, to pay more than $167 million in punitive damages to Meta for deploying malware via WhatsApp. The decision marks a significant legal victory for Meta following years of courtroom battles. A US judge previously found that NSO had violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.(Pixabay/Representative) Meta first sued NSO Group in 2019, alleging that the Israeli firm used its Pegasus spyware to target over 1,400 individuals across 20 countries—including journalists, human rights activists, and political dissidents. According to Meta, the malware was delivered through WhatsApp video calls, even if those calls went unanswered. A US judge previously found that NSO had violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, setting the stage for the jury trial to determine financial damages. On Tuesday, the jury awarded $444,719 in compensatory damages and $167,254,000 in punitive damages to Meta. Meta calls ruling a 'critical deterrent' Carl Woog, WhatsApp's VP of Global Communications, welcomed the verdict, calling it 'a critical deterrent to this malicious industry against their illegal acts aimed at American companies and the privacy and security of the people we serve.' Meta has also said it plans to seek a court injunction to prevent NSO from targeting WhatsApp in the future and hopes to donate the awarded funds to digital rights organisations. NSO pledges to appeal NSO Group, which describes itself as a 'cyber intelligence' company, maintained in court that Pegasus cannot be used on US phone numbers and claimed WhatsApp had suffered no actual harm. Gil Lainer, a spokesperson for NSO, criticised the verdict, calling it 'another step in a lengthy judicial process.' He said the firm would explore 'further proceedings' or an appeal, adding: 'We firmly believe our technology plays a critical role in preventing serious crime and terrorism… this perspective was excluded from the jury's consideration.' Despite the ruling, Meta acknowledged that recovering the damages may be a lengthy process. Mobile finder: CMF Phone 2 Pro goes on sale in India
Forbes
27-04-2025
- Politics
- Forbes
FBI Confirms $10 Million Chinese Hacker Bounty
FBI issues $10 million hacker bounty. getty The U.S. is no stranger to hack attacks that have a Chinese affiliation, from the U.S. Treasury breach, an attack that led the FBI to remotely delete malware from thousands of computers belonging to American citizens, and most recently the nation state sponsored Ghost ransomware attacks leading to yet another FBI security warning as American hospitals and factories were targeted. Now, the FBI has upped the ante as it confirmed a $10 million bounty on the heads of members of the notorious Chinese Salt Typhoon hacking group. The Chinese Salt Typhoon cyber-espionage group has risen to the top of the state-sponsored hacking pile courtesy of a number of high-profile attacks over the last six months or so. From the hacking of presidential candidate campaign iPhones, the exposure of critical vulnerabilities within the U.S. telecommunications infrastructure, and more. Salt Typhoon is known to be an advanced persistent hacking group, affiliated with the Ministry of State Security in China, conducting cyber espionage campaigns against U.S. targets. Salt Typhoon also operates under a number of other guises, including FamousSparrow, Ghost Emperor and UNC2286 Now the Federal Bureau of Investigation has confirmed it is offering a $10 million bounty for 'information about foreign government-linked individuals participating in certain malicious cyber activities against U.S. critical infrastructure in violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.' The FBI bounty is mentioned in a new security advisory that asks members of the public to report any information that they have about Salt Typhoon activity, but 'especially information about specific individuals behind the campaign.' For more information about how to qualify for the $10 million bounty, readers are advised to refer to the U.S. Department of State's national security rewards program, Rewards for Justice.
Daily Mail
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni legal war takes new twist with claims of 'psychic readings' and 'mental breakdowns'
Justin Baldoni 's legal battle with Blake Lively has taken a bizarre new twist, with lawyers launching 14 new claims against his embattled former publicist, Stephanie Jones, on Thursday. Baldoni's, 41, movie company, Wayfarer, and his publicist for the film It Ends With Us, Jennifer Abel, both filed new claims including a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, breach of contract, defamation, and fraud against Jones. They accused Jones of snooping on Abel's private messages all the way until January this year, and plotting a 'flagrant abuse of process' with Lively, 37, to generate a subpoena from a 'sham lawsuit' to cover up Jones allegedly leaking messages to Lively. Abel's new filing also accused Jones of making 'bizarre' claims about Abel to her staff based on supposed information from 'psychic readings.' 'In one instance, Jones announced to Abel's subordinates that she had learned through psychic readings that Abel was an alcoholic and a gambling addict.' Abel added that the claim had 'no basis in reality', and instead 'raised alarm about whether Jones was in the midst of a mental breakdown.' Justin Baldoni's, 41, legal battle with Blake Lively, 37, has taken a bizarre new twist, with lawyers launching 14 new claims against his embattled former publicist Stephanie Jones Abel's court document said: 'Although Jones had always been volatile, she now appeared to be actively unraveling.' 'On a different occasion, Jones announced, again per her psychic, that Abel would soon be pregnant with twins, humiliating and infuriating Abel, who—Jones knew—had struggled with fertility issues,' the filing said. Jones' lawyers shot back, calling the new claims 'just distraction and noise' and 'a few debunked conspiracy theories', in a scathing statement to The two bombshell documents filed in New York federal court totaled a combined 125 pages. The filings were made in Jones' lawsuit against Abel. After Lively and Baldoni's legal battle exploded into the courts in December, Jones sued her former staffer Abel in January claiming that Abel plotted behind her back to steal Baldoni as a client, and falsely pinned an alleged smear campaign against Lively on Jones. Trial-watchers were expecting a run-of-the mill filing this evening: a boilerplate denial of Jones' claims. But instead, Baldoni and Abel's lawyer Bryan Freedman went on the offensive. Abel's filing accused Jones of stealing her personal data from her Jonesworks PR firm company phone when she announced she was quitting in July 2024. Abel's new filing accuses Jones of 'bizarre' claims to staff, based on 'psychic readings,' including false accusations about Abel (pictured) being 'an alcoholic and a gambling addict', which Abel says caused alarm about Jones being 'in the midst of a mental breakdown' She claimed Jones had illicit access to all her personal texts through her iCloud account – until as recently as January this year. Abel claimed the alleged snooping amounted to a 'violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act', 'violations of Stored Communications Act' and 'violations of the Federal Wiretap Act'. The claws were out in the filing, with Abel giving a damning description of Jones' workplace. She claimed morale at Jonesworks was 'Abysmal', that it 'had a toxic workplace culture', and staff 'constantly gossiped and complained'. Abel even claimed Jones would 'regularly turn on deafening music so that she could berate her employees free from scrutiny.' She quoted an unnamed former employee allegedly saying 'I don't think there was one day in the office that someone wasn't crying.' Abel claimed that when she left and Jones seized her company phone, the PR boss 'had been sharing her private text messages with the entire office, mocking and disparaging her.' The filing even claimed Jones 'retained access to Abel's iCloud for multiple months thereafter, monitoring and intercepting her private communications in real-time [...] not only with her clients, fiancé, doctors, parents, and friends but also with the undersigned counsel.' In their filings, both Abel and Wayfarer cited another twist in the case that was revealed by last week. After Lively and Baldoni's legal battle exploded into the courts in December, Jones sued her former staffer Abel in January claiming that Abel plotted behind her back to steal Baldoni as a client, and falsely pinned an alleged smear campaign against Lively on Jones uncovered how Lively used her little-known company Vanzan Inc. to quietly file a mysterious lawsuit against unnamed defendants in September last year, months before her public legal battle with Baldoni began. She then used the lawsuit to secretly issue a subpoena to Jones for embarrassing texts between Baldoni, Abel and his crisis PR Melissa Nathan, without alerting any of them. The texts, allegedly showing a smear campaign plot against Lively, were used in her bombshell California legal complaint in December that kicked off the public legal war between the two Hollywood stars, and were shared with the New York Times in an explosive article the next day. In their legal filing on Thursday night, Abel and Wayfarer slammed the tactic as a 'sham lawsuit' and 'nothing more than a transparent ploy to obtain subpoena power.' Abel called it a 'flagrant abuse of process'. 'Since there were no identifiable parties and no party had been served, the subpoenas were issued without notice, depriving Abel of any knowledge of the subpoena, much less the opportunity to object,' her filing said. She accused Jones of having already leaked texts with Lively's team – and using the secret Vanzan lawsuit to create 'a veneer of legitimacy' and 'plausible deniability'. 'As a result of Jones' malicious scheme, Abel's life has been turned upside down,' her filing said. 'In an unimaginable invasion of Abel's privacy and dignity, Jones and the Lively Parties now possess the full contents of Abel's iCloud and email accounts, including her photos, text messages, and emails. Abel lives in fear of what is to come, given the vast troves of personal data in the possession of these hostile actors.' Wayfarer's filing accused Jones of a 'breach of contract' for giving up the messages, claiming it violated the 'confidentiality provision' by 'voluntarily and maliciously disclosing Confidential Information'. As well as two counts of 'Breach of contract', they accused Jones of 'breach of implied covenant' and defamation. Jones' lawyers hit back with statements to slamming the new claims as a distraction from what they say was a straightforward breach of contract by Abel. Jones' attorney Kristin Tahler accused Freedman of 'reversing course, dropping previously touted claims, presenting zero new evidence'. Tahler was referring to Abel's previous stance that she had suffered 'false imprisonment', trapped at the Jonesworks office and intimidated into signing documents and giving up her company phone – a claim that did not appear in the new filings on Thursday. 'This case will be decided on the mountain of evidence that demonstrates Wayfarer Studios and Ms. Abel deliberately breached their contracts with Jonesworks, which the defendants have conspicuously failed to rebut,' fellow attorney Maaren Shah added. 'The defendants' weak attempt to assemble their own case against Ms. Jones amounts to nothing more than a few debunked conspiracy theories and media gimmicks that have no basis in fact or evidence.'
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Lawsuit: KU Health worker accessed records of 400+ patients, including nude photos
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A class action lawsuit has been filed after attorneys say a physical therapist with the University of Kansas Health System 'unlawfully accessed' files, including 'potentially nude clinical photographs,' of more than 400 patients who had sought care at a separate Kansas hospital. The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kansas, naming KU Health, Lawrence Memorial Hospital, and Epic Systems Corporation as the defendants. It highlights two women — identified as 'Jane Doe #1' and 'Jane Doe #2' throughout the suit — who received letters in 2023, notifying them of the breach. A spokesperson for KU Health said Wednesday they are reviewing the claims. Blue Valley schools approve new policy after sex offender attends school dance According to a Kansas City-based law firm that filed the lawsuit, Stueve Siegel Hanson LLP, the breach started in February 2021 and was not discovered until February 2023. The lawsuit claims the KU Health physical therapist used his employee credentials through Epic's portal to look at the records of at least 425 patients of Plastic Surgery Specialists of Lawrence, an affiliate of LMH, despite having no connection to the patients' care. The lawsuit, which does not name the physical therapist in question, says he had no affiliation with the Lawrence hospital nor its clinic and had never provided treatment to any of the patients. It claims that the Epic portal permitted patient data sharing between unrelated health systems. 'The violation of privacy suffered by these patients is nothing short of devastating,' said Stueve Siegel Hanson Attorney Austin Moore said in a statement. 'There's a serious problem in the healthcare industry when an unauthorized employee can access patient records at an unaffiliated medical facility with virtually no oversight. We're pursuing this case to advocate for stronger safeguards around patient data and to hold accountable those who failed to protect it.' According to the lawsuit, KU Health sent a letter in April 2023 to the victims, notifying them of the data breach and admitting that an employee had accessed their information 'outside of their job duties.' KU Health said in the letter that the employee had been terminated; however, according to the law firm, the letter at the time did not specify what 'clinical information' was compromised, 'leaving many patients unaware of the full extent of what occurred.' Plaintiffs 'Doe #1' and 'Doe #2' both indicated in the lawsuit that they received care at LMH between 2021 and 2023, and as part of those procedures, pre-operative and post-operative photos of their nude bodies were gathered and made part of their medical files. New claims from alleged victims of KC tow company under criminal investigation The law firm said its lawsuit asserts negligence claims, invasion of privacy, civil rights violations, and violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the Stored Communications Act, among other claims made against KU Health, LMH and Epic. The lawsuit requests a jury trial and asks the court to award compensatory and punitive damages to the plaintiffs. In a statement Wednesday, KU Health said: 'The University of Kansas Hospital is one of three parties named in a lawsuit alleging violations of patient privacy. We take this seriously; patient privacy is very important to us. We just received the complaint, and our teams are reviewing it currently.' FOX4 has also reached out to Epic and LMH for comment. Epic has not responded; however, LMH said: 'LMH Health was made aware this morning that it is one of three parties named in a lawsuit alleging violations of patient privacy. While we can't comment on ongoing legal action, we want to reassure our patients and community that we take any suspected violation of patient privacy extremely seriously. This claim is under review by legal counsel, and we will keep the community apprised of any additional facts we can share as they become available.' A court date has not yet been set in the case. Read the full lawsuit here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
