Armenak Avagyan, 28, of Rancho Cordova has been arrested on a five-count federal indictment accusing him of trafficking in counterfeit and fraudulent credit cards, as well as identity theft. The indictment alleges that Mr. Avagyan engaged in a wide-ranging scheme to steal credit card information by using “skimmers” – electronic devices installed in gas station…
Author: Dissent
Data breach fines can risk more harm than good, experts say
George V. Hulme writes: Are regulatory and security breach fines protecting the consumer, or beginning to unduly drive security policy? As penalties begin to be levied against organizations who have been attacked, or employees violated data policy, some experts now question whether the government is penalizing one of the victims in a crime, rather than…
Sealed Records Exposed In Major Court Gaffe
In a shocking failure to protect sensitive details about dozens of ongoing criminal investigations, federal officials somehow allowed confidential information about sealed cases to be publicly accessible via the court system’s online lookup service, The Smoking Gun has learned. Over the past nine months, details of 40 separate sealed court applications filed by federal prosecutors…
AU: $40,000 damages for breach of privacy
Julie Robotham reports: A $40,000 damages order for misusing a mentally ill patient’s medical records has sent a strong privacy warning to hospitals. The compensation, awarded to a man who was a patient of the same public hospital where he worked [the former Northern Sydney Central Coast Area Health Service], is the maximum allowable in…
ABM Industries notifies employees that their data was stolen
This week, ABM Industries notified some current and former employees that their names and Social Security numbers are in the hands of a thief. According to the letter sent by ABM to the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office, on March 5, the Atlanta office of ABM was broken into and some electronic items were stolen. One…
Malware compromises infogroup payment transactions
Omaha-based Infogroup recently notified clients that their credit card information may have been accessed. Attorneys for the data, research and marketing company informed the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office on April 12 that the firm had recently detected that some of its computers had been infected with a virus that may have compromised some payment transactions….