Kipp Hanley reports: Nearly 80,000 former adult education students’ personal information stored on a flash drive was lost in Richmond on Sept. 21 according to a Virginia Department of Education press release issued Wednesday. The information went missing after being given to a representative of Virginia Tech’s Center for Assessment, Evaluation and Educational Programming for…
Author: Dissent
Card firm hacking hits thousands of Swedes
David Landes reports: Debit card information for tens of thousands of Swedish banking customers may have fallen into the wrong hands following a security breach at card manufacturers MasterCard and Visa. Computer systems at both card makers were breached recently, allowing hackers to get away with data on thousands of banking cards, the Aftonbladet newspaper…
Lags find guards’ files in waste bag
Justin Penrose reports: A convict phoned a prison officer at his home and threatened to kill him after confidential details of hundreds of warders fell into the hands of lags. Inmates got the names, addresses and National Insurance numbers of the officers when they were given the job of moving rubbish sacks. The threatened warder…
Former Lambeth police officer accused of tipping off criminals is given caution
Guardian reports: A former Lambeth cop accused of leaking information to criminals has been given a police caution. The officer, who was suspected of tipping off criminal suspects about incriminating evidence against them, was cautioned on Tuesday for offences under the Data Protection Act. The then detective constable, who police will not name or reveal…
GPs' practice worker compensated
A doctors’ administrator who viewed confidential computer files has been awarded £2,345 in damages after her dismissal was ruled to be unfair. An employment tribunal had earlier heard that Allyson Cartwright, 44, from Invergordon, looked at staff Christmas bonuses and appraisals. Three other staff at Alness-Invergordon Medical Group also accessed documents. One was sacked and…
Audit of DRS data breach completed
Patricia Daddona reports: An audit of a 2007 data breach of state taxpayer’s personal information on a stolen laptop shows the state took too long to address the situation but has since made strides to prevent future incidents. Two years ago, some 106,000 Connecticut taxpayers’ names and Social Security numbers were compromised when an employee,…