A local health systems company said a stolen hard drive contains personal and protected health information of some of its clients. According to a statement from Spectrum, no financial information was on the hard drive, and the data was double password protected. However, it was not encrypted because it was being used temporarily, and patient…
Category: Health Data
Medical identity theft a growing problem
Pamela Lewis Dolan reports: One-third of health care organizations, including physician practices, insurers and pharmacies, have reported catching a patient using the identity of someone else to obtain services, according to a report from the professional services firm PwC. […] Medical identity theft is still a small percentage of the total amount of identity theft…
GA: Law firm's documents dumped in trash
Ashley Fielding reports: Files containing private information of clients of one of Gainesville’s best-known attorneys showed up in the strangest of places last week — a newspaper recycling bin at The Times. The files came from the law office of Ashley Bell, a member of the Hall County Board of Commissioners, who said he wasn’t…
Lesson learned from a data breach: "Trust but verify"
Tony Kennedy and Maura Lerner report on the aftermath of a contractor breach that affected patients at Fairview and North Memorial hospitals in Minnesota. For those who may not recall the Accretive breach, the reporters provide a summary: On the night of July 28, according to police reports, a consultant named Matthew Doyle, who worked…
Three more breaches
The following entries have been added to HHS’s breach tool, although I haven’t as yet found any media coverage or notices to explain them: “Diversified Resources, Inc.”,GA, 863, 8/11/2011, Theft,Laptop “Health Research Institute, Inc., Pfeiffer Treatment Center”,IL, 2,000, 7/1/2011, Theft,”Desktop Computer, Network Server” “Freda J. Bowman MD, PA”, TX,” 1,300, 8/8/2011,”Unauthorized Access/Disclsoure, Hacking/IT Incident”,Network Server
Defense Dept. hit with $4.9B lawsuit over data breach
Jaikumar Vijayan reports: The U.S. Department of Defense has been hit with a $4.9 billion lawsuit over a recently disclosed data breach involving TRICARE, a healthcare system for active and retired military personnel and their families. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington D.C. this week by four people whose data was allegedly compromised, seeks…