More great investigative reporting from Brian Krebs: An increasing number of services offered in the cybercrime underground allow miscreants to purchase access to hacked computers at specific organizations. For just a few dollars, these services offer the ability to buy your way inside of Fortune 500 company networks. The service I examined for this post…
Author: Dissent
Monroeville official says UPMC, town broke health privacy law
Jonathan D. Silver reports: Monroeville’s assistant police chief has filed a complaint alleging that his own municipality, UPMC and the department’s former chief breached a federal privacy law governing release of medical information. […] The complaint, filed in August by Assistant Chief Steven Pascarella, claims that information about ambulance dispatches was being sent not only…
GOP lawmakers slam HHS over identity-theft risk in Medicare
Elise Viebeck reports: Leaders on a top House committee are pushing the federal Health Department to change the way it identifies people on Medicare. To reduce the risk of identity theft, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) must remove Social Security numbers from the Medicare card, the GOP lawmakers charged Monday. Read more…
Data security flaws part of FTC complaint against Compete
The FTC has been active in going after companies that do not provide adequate data security. Today, they announced that Compete, Inc. had settled charges involving unfair or deceptive practices associated with collecting and sharing personal information of users. Of interest here, however, are the charges in the complaint that relate to data security: Compete’s…
ICO: Education ministry BROKE the Data Protection Act
Kelly Fiveash reports from the U.K.: The Department for Education broke the Data Protection Act after it exposed the email addresses, unencrypted passwords and sensitive answers of members of the public who filled in an online form about parental controls on the net, The Register can reveal. However – despite the breach – the Information Commissioner’s Office…
IE: Schools warned over IT risk as pupil accesses confidential files
Katherine Donnelly reports: Second-level schools have been told to step up their computer security after a pupil obtained a username and password that allowed access to confidential files. The problem has arisen over the use of generic usernames and passwords, which schools may make available to substitute teachers. The Department of Education alerted the Joint…