The owner of a Houston, Texas behavioral business was charged on Wednesday with 17 counts for a scheme to defraud Medicaid for more than $1 million, prosecutors announced. Edward Birts, 51, the owner of Courage to Change, is accused of aggravated identity theft for allegedly unlawfully acquiring Medicaid beneficiaries’ information. He used the names, addresses…
Author: Dissent
Authorities bust 3 in infection of 13M computers (update 2)
Authorities have smashed one of the world’s biggest networks of virus-infected computers, a data vacuum that stole credit cards and online banking credentials from as many as 12.7 million poisoned PCs. The “botnet” of infected computers included PCs inside more than half of the Fortune 1,000 companies and more than 40 major banks, according to…
St. George Bank printing gaffe fuels fraud fears (updated)
Jessica Johnston reports: A serious bank blunder has threatened the financial security of 42,000 people after their statements were mailed to strangers. A former bank manager and a business owner are among the Gold Coast victims of a major fraud scare after private details were distributed during a St George Bank printing mistake. The error…
Council hit again by lap top thefts
Mike Keegan reports that Oldham council has suffered yet another data breach: a laptop and laptop bag containing documents with employee information such as names, job titles, and salaries was stolen over the weekend. The theft is thought to have taken place in the authority’s Human Resources Department at the Civic Centre. […] Councillor Lynne…
File-Sharing Software Potential Threat to Health Privacy – Study
A research report on file-sharing risks that compares risks for personal financial information to personal health information: Khaled El Emam, Emilio Neri, Elizabeth Jonker, Marina Sokolova, Liam Peyton, Angelica Neisa, Teresa Scassa. The inadvertent disclosure of personal health information through peer-to-peer file sharing programs. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 2010; 17: 148-158. ABSTRACT…
File-Sharing Software Potential Threat to Health Privacy
The personal health and financial information stored in thousands of North American home computers may be vulnerable to theft through file-sharing software, according to a research study published online in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. […] El Emam’s CHEO team used popular file sharing software to gain access to documents they downloaded…