Category: Health Data

Jessica Elder reports on another case of ransomware and an extortion demand affecting a health facility in Australia: A Mermaid Waters physiotherapy clinic is the second medical practice on the Gold Coast to be held to ransom by an international hacker demanding $5000 to unlock patient files. The scam, which has affected businesses across the…

For the second time in six months, Louisiana State University (LSU) has disclosed a breach involving patient information. Willard Woods of KSLA reports: A database error in a computer entry field led to the disclosure of personal health information of 8,330 LSU Health patients. The hospital says it notified each patient on Wednesday of the…

KVOA reports that information on 8 patients of a Tucson doctor including their names, date of birth, Social Security numbers, and health insurance information wound up in a yard in Tempe. We won’t name the Tucson doctor involved because it is still unclear where the mistake was made, but we do know the company that handles his…

The compromise at web hosting firm E-dreamz, reported here earlier today, didn’t affect only  Presbyterian Anesthesia Associates.  According to Torie Wells,  approximately 2,000 patients of Piedmont Healthcare were also affected: We were told that E-dreamz databases had been compromised and that credit card data of a number of our patients had been exposed,” said Gregory Guin,…

HealthITSecurity.com has obtained more details on the breach affecting almost 10,000 patients of Presbyterian Anesthesia Associates. Apparently the data were encrypted, but the encryption key was acquired by whomever attacked the E-Dreamz server hosting the practice’s database.

More on a case reported previously on this blog: Shalamar Major, 32, and Tanisha Wright, 27, both of Deerfield Beach, pled guilty on May 13 in connection with a tax refund scheme that used stolen social security and other personal identifying information to file on-line tax returns claiming fraudulent tax refunds from the IRS. More…