Maryland’s Attorney General’s list for 2015 contains over 500 breach reports, many of which were never covered by the media. Here are two involving health or medical entities or health data, followed by some from the education sector that you may not have known about:
Dharani Jasthi DMD PC dba Today’s Dental Associates reported that they:
received an anonymous fax after close of business on June 24, 2015. The anonymous source stated that it found a document containing names, ages, social security numbers and dates of birth of 6 of Today’s Dental patients during a search of the apartment of a former Today’s Dental employee and was notifying Today’s Dental because the source understood it to be sensitive information.
Today’s Dental promptly filed a police report with the Baltimore County Police Department. It is also taking steps to obtain background checks on new employees and secure its computer systems by assigning new passwords to employees who need to access patient records. Although we have no information that leads us to believe that the ex-employee took any action with respect to the personal information taken, it is possible that the personal information of the identified patients may be compromised.
N. Stephen Delgado O.D. of Columbia Eye Care (Columbia, MD) notified 20 Maryland customers after their safe was stolen:
We are writing to inform you that there possibly may have been a security breach with your credit card number on August 5, 2015. During the office renovation, our safe was stolen along with its contents which included the daily paperwork. There were no credit card expiration dates, three digit security codes or personal information in the contents of the safe. There is a police report filed with Howard County Police.
We recommend that you cancel the card you provided Columbia Eye Care and we encourage you to monitor your bank/credit card statement as well as your credit report. If you do see fraud on your account, please file a police report and Columbia Eye Care will file a supplemental police report.
Meanwhile, in the education sector:
- Boston University, who reported a server breach in July, had another incident later in the year when an employee fell for a phishing scheme that came from a Nigerian IP address. This time, 174 students had their names, SSN, and in some cases, driver’s license numbers, acquired.
- Nova Southeastern University, who first discovered a 2013 hack in 2014, reported another breach in November involving student and employee name, address, phone number, and SSN.
- Wabash College reported that malware both exfiltrated personal information and locked up all files (ransomware). The personal information of 49 people who were alumni or friends of the college was exfiltrated, including SSN, credit card information, and/or bank account information. The college was able to restore files from backup, and did not pay the ransom demand.
- Brandeis University notified 193 students after two computers were stolen from the Registrar’s office in October, 2015. The types of information involved included names, dates of birth, permanent and email addresses, phone numbers, student records information, and in some cases, SSN. The total number of students impacted was not disclosed.