Over on The Breach Blog, Evan Francen has written up some of the P2P breaches uncovered by Red Team Protection. It makes for fascinating reading, and a cautionary tale. If you have any patient or confidential information on your computer, installing or running file-sharing programs may result in you sharing much more than you intended or even know.
Here’s just some of what the researchers found:
- A doctor in Hawaii leaked 1,767 files onto the Gnutella file sharing network. These files contained several hundred medical records along with personal identifiers. The doctor was contacted and the P2P application was removed.
- An insurance claims adjuster was responsible for the compromise of over 100 confidential mental health assessments over the Gnutella P2P network. The adjuster was contacted by RedTeam and advised to remove the P2P application.
- A California chiropractor leaked 9.947Â (sic) files (his entire c: drive) onto the Gnutella network. These files included confidential treatment records and billing statements.
- A North Carolina based mental health provider, published 913 confidential mental health profiles, complete with Medicaid numbers, onto the Gnutella file sharing network. RedTeam contacted the administrator and had the P2P application removed.
If you haven’t sent out any memos to employees reminding them of the dangers of file-sharing applications, wouldn’t this week be a good time to do so?