Parcel service UPS has encrypted all its UK laptops and smartphones, following a breach of the Data Protection Act last year. The firm has also signed an undertaking to assure the Information Commissioner’s Office that personal information will be kept securely in future. An unencrypted, password-protected laptop was stolen from a UPS employees while on…
Author: Dissent
Heartland CEO on Data Breach: QSAs Let Us Down
For Heartland Payment Systems Inc. CEO Robert Carr, the year did not start off well, to say the least. In January, the Princeton, N.J.-based provider of credit and debit processing, payment and check management services was forced to acknowledge it had been the target of a data breach — in hindsight, possibly the largest to…
Stolen IDs help man pay for penis and breast enlargements
A Philadelphia man who authorities say stole the identities of eight Lehigh Valley residents and racked up $88,000 of bills in their names — some of which was used to buy penis enlargements for him and a friend and breast implants for two women — has pleaded guilty to more than 40 crimes, according to…
State sues Lakeville chiropractor for credit card fraud
The Minnesota attorney general is suing a Lakeville chiropractor for fraudulently pushing high-cost credit cards onto patients and pre-billing them for thousands of dollars worth of treatments. While the credit cards help doctors get paid for expensive medical procedures, they leave patients with huge debts and monthly interest rates that can balloon as high as…
Hackers strike UC Berkeley again
Hackers have struck again at UC Berkeley computers, this time at the Graduate School of Journalism, the university announced Tuesday. In a statement from the university’s Department of Public Affairs, the school said a hacker may have gained access to “Social Security numbers and/or dates of birth” of 493 applicants to the journalism school between…
Seattle man sentenced for ID theft, hacking
Frederick Eugene Wood once had been a promising medical student, before the methamphetamine took over. Then he became an HIV-infected addict who used his smarts as a computer hacker and identity thief. Tuesday, a federal judge in Seattle sentenced the 34-year-old Seattle man to more than three years in prison for using peer-to-peer file-sharing networks…