Sasha Romanosky writes: I imagine most of you have received one or more letters from companies informing you that they lost your personal information. If so, what, if anything, did you do about it? Did you check your credit history?; close a financial account?; something else?; or nothing at all? If you did act, you…
Author: Dissent
OCR: Data Breaches Double Since July
Dom Nicastro writes: The number of entities reporting breaches of unsecured protected health information (PHI) affecting 500 or more individuals is close to reaching the 200 mark. As of Tuesday, November 30, the number of entities reporting breaches to the government’s HIPAA privacy and security enforcer hit 197. The number of entities—listed on the Office…
Russian gang used customized virus bought from hacker forum on ATMs
Members of an organized criminal group responsible for infecting ATMs with a computer virus have been arrested in Yakutsk, capital of the far eastern Russian Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) according to the Ministry of the Interior. The leader of the gang sought the services of a hacker through an international Internet forum. Once recruited the…
WA: ID theft bonanza left unsecured at state building
Although I covered this incident on DataBreaches.net, I’m including it here, too, as health-related data were reportedly involved. Tracy Vedder reports: TACOMA, Wash. — When we handed Lyle Lippel a set of documents that could have been used to steal his identity and cause financial ruin he said it was crazy and scary that the…
WA: ID theft bonanza left unsecured at state building
Tracy Vedder reports: TACOMA, Wash. — When we handed Lyle Lippel a set of documents that could have been used to steal his identity and cause financial ruin he said it was crazy and scary that the papers were so easy to find. Lippel’s private information was in a pile of paperwork dumped in plain…
Costa Rica: Computer Fraud Bill Passed
InsideCostaRica reports: Legislators approved the bill that establishes penalties for computer fraud. Among the sanctions are a violation of personal data and sets the penalty of 3 to 6 years in prison. In addition, it provides a penalty of 4 to 8 years in prison for extortion. Computer fraud case of espionage, computer sabotage and…