Vladimir Drinkman, the Russian hacker indicted and extradited as part of what was the largest hacking case of its time, was sentenced yesterday to 12 years in prison by a federal judge in New Jersey. Drinkman had pleaded guilty in 2015 to conspiring to hack firms including Heartland Payment Systems Inc., 7-Eleven, and Hannaford Bros., and Jet Blue. Dmitriy Smilianets,…
Category: U.S.
ICE lawyer in Seattle charged with stealing immigrants’ identities
AP reports: The chief counsel for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Seattle has been charged with stealing immigrants’ identities. Raphael A. Sanchez, who resigned from the agency effective Monday, faces one count of aggravated identity theft and another of wire fraud in a charging document filed Monday in U.S. District Court. Prosecutors with the…
Triple-S Advantage notifies 36,305 Puerto Rican members of mailing error involving their information
If you were an entity that wound up as part of a $3.5 million settlement with HHS in 2015, you probably wouldn’t want to be reporting yet another breach to HHS now, particularly if your area was still trying to recover from a major hurricane and crisis. Yet that’s the situation Triple-S Advantage, an independent licensee…
Hygienist Steals Patients, Leaves Dentist with Huge Legal Bills
So we’ve all read breach reports about employees or former employees stealing patient data to go start a new competitive practice or to help their new employer. And a blog post on Dental Practice Marketing and Management by Jim Du Molin about a dental hygienist stealing patient data for her new place of work read…
Data breach at MassTaxConnect exposed businesses’ info
Joshua Miller reports: A data mix-up on a state tax portal inadvertently made private data from about 16,500 business taxpayers viewable to other companies, potentially even competitors. The breach lasted from Aug. 7, 2017, through Jan. 23, 2018, and allowed some companies to view other business’s names, federal employer identification numbers, tax payments, and other…
Consequences for HIPAA violations don’t stop when a business closes
There’s a new settlement announcement from HHS OCR that makes clear that even if an entity closes its doors, any HIPAA enforcement action continues: A receiver appointed to liquidate the assets of Filefax, Inc. has agreed to pay $100,000 out of the receivership estate to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office…