Joe Ryan reports that 29 year-old Steven Nelson of the Bronx pleaded not guilty in a Newark court today and remains free on bail. Nelson had been indicted by a federal grand jury in July on a tax refund scheme that not only involved ID theft, but used the identities of pediatric cancer patients to…
Category: Health Data
Unauthorized access at Littleton Regional Hospital results in firing
For the second time in as many years, Littleton Regional Hospital has reported a problem with employee snooping. On June 29, the hospital’s Chief Administrator Officer notified the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office that on May 21, a hospital employee reported that another employee was improperly accessing patient records. The hospital’s audit of their computer…
Health care sector breaches in the news: just the tip of the iceberg?
Last week, a few mainstream news articles noted that the Identity Theft Resource Center’s database revealed that 113 of the 385 breaches they had recorded for this year involved the health care sector. As Brian Horowitz of eWeek noted, only breaches that include SSN, financial information, or driver’s license numbers are included in ITRC’s database….
Laptops stolen from Jewish Hospital contained patient data on 2,089
Charles Gazaway reports that two laptops containing unencrypted personal information were stolen from Jewish Hospital. This appears to be the third breach in recent months involving Jewish Hospital. Previous breaches were reported here. A statement posted on the hospital’s web site says: A potential data breach was discovered at the Jewish Hospital Catheterization Lab following…
UNCG Discovers Health Information Security Breaches; 2,500 Being Notified
From the University of North Carolina – Greensboro (UNGG) statement: Computer security breaches at two UNCG clinics allowed unauthorized access to information about more than 2,500 individuals. The university has mailed letters to the last known addresses of those whose personal information was exposed and posted notices on the clinics’ websites. The two computers infected…
How an ancient printer can spill your most intimate secrets
Dan Goodin reports: Researchers have devised a novel way to recover confidential messages processed in doctors’ offices and elsewhere by analyzing the sounds made when documents are reproduced on dot-matrix printers. This so-called side-channel attack works by recording the “acoustic emanations” of a confidential document being printed, and then processing it with software that translates…