Jordan Robertson of Associated Press reports:
Until recently, medical files belonging to nearly 300,000 Californians sat unsecured on the Internet for the entire world to see.
There were insurance forms, Social Security numbers and doctors’ notes. Among the files were summaries that spelled out, in painstaking detail, a trucker’s crushed fingers, a maintenance worker’s broken ribs and one man’s bout with sexual dysfunction.
At a time of mounting computer hacking threats, the incident offers an alarming glimpse at privacy risks as the nation moves steadily into an era in which every American’s sensitive medical information will be digitized.
Read more of his news story on KTAR.
Parenthetically, I note that firm’s press release at the time (posted on DataBreaches.net) had said:
The company was notified of the possible breach by a data security firm that discovered some of the files using a sophisticated, automated search of Google indexes.
AP’s reporting, however, suggests that no sophistication was required:
The personal data was discovered by Aaron Titus, a researcher with Identity Finder who then alerted Hecht’s firm and The Associated Press. He found it through Internet searches, a common tactic for finding private information posted on unsecured sites.
The data were “available to anyone in the world with half a brain and access to Google,” Titus says.
Titus says Hecht’s company failed to use two basic techniques that could have protected the data- requiring a password and instructing search engines not to index the pages. He called the breach “likely a case of felony stupidity.”
For years I have been pointing out the risks with huge databases that may be accessible on the Internet without their custodians’ intention or knowledge. I have also pointed out that access controls to data have generally been abysmal. How often have we seen breaches in which credentials were too easily obtained, shared, or compromised?
Some readers have pointed out the potential benefits of networking and access, and I agree that in some cases, the potential benefits may outweigh the risks, but that should be the patient’s decision, not the government’s.
As Robertson’s coverage highlights, there is way too much data too readily accessible to too many people to really be able to ensure security and protect privacy of our sensitive health information. The Southern California Medical-Legal Consultants breach was bad, undoubtedly, and affected many people. But can we really say it is worse than discovering that a transcription service allowed its client files to be indexed by Google and 200 patients’ cancer consultation reports were available on the web for anyone to read?
The media looks to the big-number breaches and suggests we should learn a lesson. Anyone who hasn’t already learned the lesson that our privacy is at risk has been living under a rock. The lesson we need to learn is how to do this right. Instead of just focusing on the failures, how about some coverage of entities that totally got rid of all SSN, routinely encrypt their data, purge unneeded data, do not let sensitive data leave the premises on PDAs or laptops that are lost or left in cars, and have adequately controlled access to prevent employee snooping or other issues? Where are the positive examples in the media? How about we share some successes along with the failures?