Elaine Edwards reports: The Data Protection Commissioner considered telling organisations to stop allowing information such as mothers’ maiden names to be used for security questions after millions of personal records were published on a government genealogy site last year. In July last year, then commissioner Billy Hawkes threatened to take enforcement action against the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht after…
Month: August 2015
AU: WA prison officer fined for snooping
A senior prison officer who used a work computer to obtain information about prisoners involved in a drugs syndicate “out of curiosity” has been fined $5000. Read about it on news.com.au.
NZ: Email outs vulnerable students
The New Zealand Herald reports: Vulnerable university students had their privacy breached in an email asking them to rate their experiences with counselling services. Dozens of Massey University students’ email addresses and names were visible in the message sent last month, in what the Privacy Commissioner’s office said was a breach of private information. A…
Advanced Data Processing/Intermedix sued over 2012 insider breach
Remember the Advanced Data Processing/Intermedix insider breach of 2012 where a rogue employee provided ambulance patient identity information to others involved in a tax refund fraud scheme? I had covered it on PHIprivacy.net (cf here and here for just two of the posts) and also on this site (cf, this post). In reporting on the breach, one of the…
VA: Teacher’s file contains personal info on others
Jeremy Lazarus reports: If you teach or have taught for Richmond Public Schools, your colleagues may have access to your personal information. The disclosure that the RPS Human Resources Department is failing to guard confidential records came from a former teacher who found her personnel file contained information it should not have, including Social Security…
UPDATE: Russia thought to be behind attack on Pentagon Joint Chief of Staff email system
Courtney Kube and Jim Miklaszewski report: U.S. officials tell NBC News that Russia launched a “sophisticated cyberattack” against the Pentagon’s Joint Staff unclassified email system, which has been shut down and taken offline for nearly two weeks. According to the officials, the “sophisticated cyber intrusion” occurred sometime around July 25 and affected some 4,000 military…