Madison County sheriff’s detectives say their big break in solving a string of identity-theft cases was when they learned all four victims dined recently at the same restaurant – Amarillo Tex’s Steakhouse. The information from their credit cards was stolen using a small device called a “skimmer.” Detectives learned that an employee of the restaurant…
Author: Dissent
Missing investment firm backup tapes contained account info
By letter to the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office dated March 29, Proxima Alfa Investments’ attorney-in-fact Publio Vallejo reported that backup tapes containing account information had been stolen more than six months ago. A letter dated March 30 to the affected individual(s), states that the firm, which is in liquidation and had ceased operations mid-2009,…
Chase Isn’t Liable for Assistant’s $1M Fraud
We’ve read about a number of lawsuits where businesses sue their banks for money that was siphoned off in wire transfers without the company being aware of the problem. Here’s a court decision out of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals that may impact some cases down the road and serves as a timely reminder…
Flawed Assumptions in the Albert Gonzalez Case
Evan Schuman of StorefrontBacktalk has a column over on CBS News that points out some of the flaws in lawyers’ arguments revolving around the Albert Gonzalez case, such as arguments that disclosure of retailers’ names would hurt their stock prices. Evan points out what those of us who track breaches know all too well: there…
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center breach exposes patient data – but when?
Does anybody recognize this breach? The information was found in Google’s cache: Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Information Website FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Data Compromise Questions 1. What has happened? Patient information was inadvertently included in a software update to a website used by physicians, medical researchers and their staff. Sixteen users outside of MSKCC downloaded the…
Technology vs Policy for privacy
Fred Trotter writes: I have long been an advocate of reasonable and measured reaction to “privacy scare tactics”. I have argued, for instance, that it was a good thing that HIPAA does not cover PHR systems. But that does not mean that I do not think privacy is important. In fact there has been something…