Mark Woolsey reports: A security breach at the Forsyth County Tax Commissioners office led to the inadvertent release Social Security numbers of nearly 20,000 residents. Tax commissioner Matthew Ledbetter said in a letter to those impacted that the information was mistakenly included in a data file downloaded by two outside parties. Both had authorized access…
Category: Breach Incidents
Fairbanks Hospital notifies patients after discovering employees could have been inappropriately accessing patient records for years (UPDATED)
Fairbanks Hospital in Indianapolis is notifying an undisclosed number of patients that employees could have been accessing protected health information of patients since at least November 2013 (and possibly earlier). The information that was accessed included current and former patients’ social security numbers, contact information, diagnosis, treatment and health insurance. In a notification dated December 16, the hospital…
OH: Henry County home health and hospice patients’ records stolen
More than 500 patients served by Henry County Health Department Home Health and Hospice are being notified after a nurse’s laptop and paperwork was stolen from her garaged car on October 22. An arrest has reportedly been made in the case, but the laptop and papers were not recovered. According to the Toledo Blade and WNWO, the laptop…
1,000 UK government laptops, computers and data sticks missing since election
The Irish Examiner reports: At least 1,000 government laptops, computers and data sticks have been reported lost or stolen since the general election, according to official figures. Equipment went missing from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) at an average rate of more than one a day, according to records obtained under Freedom of Information (FoI)…
Costa Rica: great coffee, but not-so-great website security?
Pop Quiz: What do the Argentinian Ministry of Industry, the National Assembly of Ecuador, Nigeria’s embassy in Belgium, the Eastern India Regional Council, Jordan’s ministry of tourism, the Slovak Chamber of Commerce, and the Consular Department of the Embassy of the Russian Federation all have in common? Answer: They’re some of the government web sites hacked and dumped…
Reused passwords behind Groupon fraud attack
Nicole Kobie reports: Groupon has denied it’s been hacked following reports that users’ accounts are being abused to buy expensive holidays. Users of the discount site have reported hundreds of pounds missing from bank accounts, with one saying their account was used by a criminal to buy a holiday worth more than £2,400. Groupon said it hasn’t…