A former American Airlines employee at Mineta San Jose International Airport is facing 66 felony charges for allegedly stealing and using customer credit card numbers. Prosecutors claim Micheline Johnson, 49, of Concord, skimmed customers’ credit card numbers for several years while she worked as a customer service agent. They say she used those numbers on…
Author: Dissent
(follow-up) ME: Little found by police on June data breach
Jamison Cocklin reports: For now, it seems the data breach that occurred last spring when two of the University of Maine’s computer servers were infiltrated by hackers will have few repercussions on the more than 4,000 students affected. Officer Bill Mitchell, a computer forensics specialist who is leading the investigation for the University of Maine…
Privacy breach investigation at St Thomas Elgin General Hospital
Scott Kitching reports: Hospital officials in St Thomas have launched an investigation after a breach of privacy involving almost 100 patients at St Thomas Elgin General Hospital. A statement from the hospital says personal health information on a printed schedule was found in a parking lot on February 2nd. Included in the schedule were details…
Study reveals security weaknesses in file-sharing methods used in clinical trials
Patients who participate in clinical trials expect that their personal information will remain confidential, but a recent study led by Dr. Khaled El-Emam, Canada Research Chair in Electronic Health Information at the CHEO Research Institute, found that the security practices used to transfer and share sensitive files were inadequate. The two-part study, entitled “How Strong…
Data Resellers Liable for Downstream Security Failures
Leslie Fair of the FTC comments on recent settlements that were reported earlier this month: Of course, no legitimate business would put out a welcome mat for crooks. But as the FTC’s data security cases make clear, that’s the effect when companies fail to take reasonable steps to secure sensitive information in their possession —…
Web glitch allowed access to others’ data
Adam Jones reports: A glitch in a new online state program allowed people to retrieve personal identification data associated with vehicle registration without asking users to verify they had legal authorization to access the records. The online search tool was removed from the Alabama Motor Vehicle Division website last week after being on the Internet…