Brent Hunsberger reports that Health Net has sent out corrected notifications following the discovery of missing drives in January: Health Net Inc. said a data breach discovered in January affected more people than originally thought and that it had erred in telling thousands of former and current members that their Social Security numbers were not…
Author: Dissent
Why the Proposed Massachusetts HIV Testing Bill Is Bad for Patients
Paul E. Sax, M.D. comments: As I’ve written about here multiple times, I’m not a big fan of the HIV testing law in our state. First, there’s the requirement for written informed consent, something that every state (except a couple) has wisely abandoned. Second, it’s more than a testing law — it’s also an HIV privacy law, which is…
NC: VA worker sentenced for stealing vets’ identities
A Department of Veterans Affairs worker has been sentenced to 11 years in federal prison for stealing personal information from disabled North Carolina veterans to generate bogus tax returns. Michael Ray Woods, 48, of Fayetteville, was convicted in February of 12 counts of preparing false tax returns, 10 counts of wire fraud, 10 counts of…
HIPAA Auditor Involved in Own Data Breach
Dom Nicastro of Health Leaders Media has an item today about how KPMG, the company hired by OCR to implement the HITECH-mandated HIPAA compliance auditing plan, had its own data breach last year. That breach was covered at the time on PHIprivacy.net, here. Dom writes, in part: Asked if OCR considered the KPMG involvement on…
NC: VA worker sentenced for stealing vets' identities
A Department of Veterans Affairs worker has been sentenced to 11 years in federal prison for stealing personal information from disabled North Carolina veterans to generate bogus tax returns. Michael Ray Woods, 48, of Fayetteville, was convicted in February of 12 counts of preparing false tax returns, 10 counts of wire fraud, 10 counts of…
Why Hackers Find Many US Companies Easy to Hack?
Why do big companies fall prey to cyber attacks very easily? According to hackers taking part in Defcon conference, the world’s largest hacking convention in Las Vegas, workers at big corporations are poorly trained in security, which makes it “ridiculously easy” for hackers to trick them and reveal key information to plan cyber attacks against…