Kathleen Struck reports: Hacking into patient medical records can be as easy as tapping into a hospital’s unsecured wireless network from a laptop in the parking lot. Government auditors proved it “by sitting in hospital parking lots with simple laptop computers” and obtaining “patient information from unsecured hospital wireless networks,” according to Julie K. Taitsman,…
Month: February 2013
For health data, big isn't better
Deven McGraw of CDT expresses their concern over an executive proposal to have the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) create a centralized database of health insurance claims: Under the law, the multi-state plans are to supplement state-based insurance plans, with the goal of ensuring there is true competition in all markets. OPM, which currently administers…
RSA Panel: Thieves Thrive On Stolen Medical Data
Marcia Savage reports: Data security breaches involving third parties are on the rise, particularly in the health-care industry, a panel of security experts said Tuesday at the RSA Conference 2013. “This is an upward trend,” the panel moderator, James Christiansen, CISO at the Sands Corp., told the audience of security professionals. “If it’s not on…
AU: Soldiers' medical records found on road
David Murray reports: Confidential medical records detailing names, addresses and injuries of soldiers have been found scattered on a busy Brisbane street. The sensitive documents were blowing along Leichhardt St at Spring Hill near the base of an orthopaedic specialist treating the soldiers. Read more on The Australian. The orthopedist was not named. Hopefully there…
Mandatory data breach notification law proposed in Canada
Nestor E. Arellano reports: With the Conservative government’s privacy reform bill sitting untouched after being introduced about two years ago, New Democractic Party MP Charmain Borg has introduced a private member’s bill that that would make it mandatory for organizations to report data breach incidents. Bill C-475, Borg’s proposed amendment to the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronics Document…
ABC Australia confirms data breach, target was old micro-site
Late last night or early this morning, how ever you want to look at it, ABC Australia was breached and heap of personal information had been posted online. It appears that since then, according to SCmagazine the ABC Australia spokeswomen Sally Cray has confirmed that this data is in fact from ABC and that a old "micro-site" or side site…