Parallon Business Solutions in Tennessee provides billing services for physician practices. On February 5, 2014, they were informed by Metropolitan Police in Nashville and the Secret Service that a former employee was under investigation for stealing patient information. The data theft occurred between August 27, 2012 and April 23, 2013 and included patients’ names, addresses,…
Month: April 2014
Maryland state agencies hit by cyberattacks, records show
Capital News Service reports: Maryland government entities have suffered at least six cyberattacks since the beginning of 2013, according to incident reports from the Department of Information Technology. The heavily-redacted reports, obtained by Capital News Service through a Maryland Public Information Act request, reveal that data-hungry hackers and scammers aren’t only going after retailers like…
OH: Breach of Morrow Co. EMS/911 patient data raises questions
John Jarvis reports on disputed versions of a network issue that could have compromised patient information? No patients were ever notified, and those involved tell different stories about whether they were advised to notify patients or not: Patient information in the Morrow County emergency medical service and 911 systems was at risk of being compromised…
Historian’s Efforts To Research Civil War PTSD Thwarted By Privacy Law
Here we go again. Alden Bourne reports that Matt Warshauer, a history professor at Central Connecticut State University, has encountered privacy obstacles to researching Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or associated conditions like Soldier’s Heart in past wars. […] Warshauer discovered Perkins in a patient casebook he was able to look at back in 2011. Soon after, the…
SEC Needs to Improve Controls over Financial Systems and Data – GAO Report
Highlights from a GAO report released yesterday: Although the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had implemented and made progress in strengthening information security controls, weaknesses limited their effectiveness in protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of a key financial system. For this system’s network, servers, applications, and databases, weaknesses in several controls were found, as…
Tax refund fraud scheme affecting health care professionals reported in multiple states
The Indiana State Medical Association (ISMA) has issued this e-report: Based on reports from physicians and accountants, the ISMA previously issued several email alerts about physician identity theft and tax fraud at the federal level. The ISMA has now learned the Indiana Department of Revenue (DOR) has been investigating identity theft and tax return scams…