Seattle area commuter company Sound Transit accidentally released 173,000 customer emails to a political campaign promoting Sound Transit 3, a ballot measure for mass transit expansion. The agency attributed the breach to a mistake during a public records request.

Australian companies have recently begun experiencing CEO spam attacks, according to security firm Proofpoint. The spam messages, which have been growing in the US over the past year, takes place when spammers pretend to be an executive of the company and send an internal employee an email to make a wire transfer. Accounting employees are often targeted in these scams, which have proven to be successful for scammers.

Congressional Republicans have issued subpoenas to three companies that worked with Hillary Clinton to build and service her private email server while she was secretary of state.The step comes as Republicans are trying to keep the email scandal alive, as Clinton campaigns for the Democratic ticker for president.

Security startup Virtu has raised $29 million in a round of funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners. The company offers a technology that aims to protect consumers inboxes from spying by giving users the tools to place locks on individual files and messages. The company was co-founded by Will Ackerly, an NSA graduate.

Retailer Eddie Bauer has reported that its system has been infected with point-of-sale malware and that customer credit card details may have been exposed. The company said the breach affects its stores across the U.S. and Canada. In response, the retailer is giving customers that made purchases and returns during the vulnerable period will get free identity protection services from Kroll.

Email-Gallery.com has a treasure trove of well executed and designed email marketing messages from brands across industries. The site was created by Min Kim, web art director at publishing company Bobit Business Media, in 2009. "Whether it's an e-promo or a regular newsletter, a well designed email should have a clear message which will lead users to accomplish the goal that generates leads or conversions," Kim told Direct Marketing News. "Clear message and solid content, good images, responsive, clean code."

Groupon, which sent about 388 emails per user last year, was the most popular mailing list that consumers wanted to unsubscribe from, according to a new report from Unroll.Me, an app that lets consumers mass unsubscribe from email marketing lists. LivingSocial followed behind Groupon. Facebook was No. 3 on the list, Meetup No. 4 and Twitter was No. 5 on the list.

Wyndham Hotel Group has grown its Wyndham Rewards loyalty program by almost 7 million people since it relaunched the program last May. The company attributes a lot of that growth to email. The company sends out a regular emails personalized to the member with travel recommendations, balance updates, as well as ideas on places to go.

Colin Powell says that he didn't give Hillary Clinton the idea to use a personal email account while she was Secretary of State, despite what Clinton told FBI investigators. Powell told People: "Her people have been trying to pin it on me. The truth is, she was using [the private email server] for a year before I sent her a memo telling her what I did."

Connected smart plugs can give hackers access to a user's entire home network, as well as their email account, according to security researchers. Bitdefender researchers Dragos Gavrilut, Radu Basaraba, and George Cabau said that one device has weak default passwords and doesn't use encryption. The device also doesn't have a system in place to encourage users with security risks to change their passwords.