Sandra Davis reports: A new policy regulating the storage of electronic personal health information will be in place within the next two weeks as a result of the disappearance of a USB memory stick last November at the Saint John Regional Hospital. The memory stick contained personal patient information, including Medicare numbers, of about 1,500…
Month: September 2011
MN: Fairview Health Services and North Memorial Hospital inform patients of breach due to Accretive Health's security #FAIL
Lorna Benson reports: Fairview and North Memorial Hospitals are notifying more than 16,000 patients that a laptop containing their personal and medical information was stolen. The laptop belonged to a healthcare services firm that coordinates services for Fairview. The theft occurred on July 25 in the parking lot of a Minneapolis restaurant. The computer contained…
UKChatterbox urges password change following hack attack
John Leyden reports: Popular IRC service UKChatterbox is advising users to change their passwords following a series of hacks which culminated in an attack that may have compromised user details. The password reset follows on from a succession of outages – previously attributed to maintenance upgrades – dating back to the start of the summer. In a notice to…
California SEIU Hospital Benefits Clerk Sentenced for $1M+ Identity Theft
This seems to be my day for updating older cases. Carl Horowitz provides an update to a breach that was first disclosed in February 2009 but actually occurred in July 2007: Mia Camille Garza describes herself as “somebody who has fallen off the path.” Her victims understandably aren’t as charitable. Last Thursday, September 22, Garza,…
Admitted Countrywide data thief gets 8 months in prison (updated)
In a breach case that was first revealed in August 2008, a former Countrywide employee has been sentenced: A former employee of mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp. was sentenced Tuesday to eight months in prison and ordered to repay $1.2 million after pleading guilty to downloading millions of borrower files on thumb drives and selling…
[CORRECTED] TN: Patient data stolen from Summit Medical employee's car
Carly Harrington reports: Documents containing health information of about 750 Summit Medical Group patients was stolen from an employee’s vehicle earlier this month. The records including patient names and diagnoses were taken Sept. 4 when a case containing information about certain Summit patients’ hospital discharges from December 2010 through August 2011 was among items stolen…