From the Associated Press: A company that guarantees federal student loans said Friday that personal data on about 3.3 million people nationwide has been stolen from its headquarters in Minnesota. Educational Credit Management Corp. said the data included names, addresses, Social Security numbers and dates of birth of borrowers, but no financial or bank account…
Author: Dissent
EMR Data Theft Booming
Nicole Lewis reports: Acceleration in the use of electronic medical records may lead to an increase in personal health information theft, according to a new study that shows there were more than 275,000 cases of medical information theft in the U.S. last year.Unlike stealing a driver’s license or a credit card, data gleaned from personal…
Gonzalez sentenced to concurrent 20-years terms; one more sentencing to go
Nancy Weil reports: As his parents and sister silently wept, hacker mastermind Albert Gonzalez was sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court to two concurrent 20-year stints in prison for his role in what prosecutors called the “unparalleled” theft of millions of credit and debit card numbers from major U.S. retailers.* U.S. District Court Judge Patti…
UK: Porters have 'access' to medical records
Over 100,000 non-medical staff have access to patient records, a campaign group is claming. Big Brother Watch, in its report ‘Broken Records’ claims that 101,272 non-medical personnel working in acute NHS trusts have access to records – access being defined as being able to see at least a patient’s full name, date of birth and…
(follow-up) Auction Slammed Over Data Theft
In preparing this site’s Top 10 biggest breaches list, I had noted that there were conflicting reports about a 2008 breach involving the Korea unit of eBay. The breach was back in the news recently as a court held that Auction was not liable. Now it’s back in the news yet again with reports that…
GAO Report: Information Security: Concerted Response Needed to Resolve Persistent Weaknesses
The summary of GAO-10-536T report, Information Security: Concerted Response Needed to Resolve Persistent Weaknesses, March 24, 2010: Without proper safeguards, federal computer systems are vulnerable to intrusions by individuals who have malicious intentions and can obtain sensitive information. The need for a vigilant approach to information security has been demonstrated by the pervasive and sustained…