Chris Opfer writes: Six years after Shane Enslin left his repairman job at a Coca-Cola distribution plant in Pennsylvania, the company told him that his Social Security number and other personal information might have fallen into the wrong hands. A few months later, a declined credit card upended his family vacation. Then came a third…
Category: U.S.
Hospital hit by ransomware: Attackers demand Bitcoin to release control of system
The Greenfield Reporter notes: Hancock Health fell victim to a cyber attack Thursday, with a hacker demanding Bitcoin to relinquish control of part of the hospital’s computer system. Employees knew something was wrong Thursday night, when the network began running more slowly than normal, senior vice president/chief strategy and innovation officer Rob Matt said. A…
Website operators are in the dark about privacy violations by third-party scripts
by Steven Englehardt, Gunes Acar, and Arvind Narayanan Recently we revealed that “session replay” scripts on websites record everything you do, like someone looking over your shoulder, and send it to third-party servers. This en-masse data exfiltration inevitably scoops up sensitive, personal information — in real time, as you type it. We released the data…
Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences notifying 280,000 Medicaid patients after hack
Oof. Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences is notifying 279,865 Medicaid patients of a hacking incident. Here is the notice from OSU’s web site: Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences (OSUCHS) takes the privacy and security of our patients’ information very seriously. Regrettably, this notice is regarding an incident in which some Medicaid patient information…
Palomar Health notifying patients after nurse caught snooping in records
As seen on their site: Notice to Palomar Health Patients Regarding Unauthorized Access of Patient Health Information Palomar Health is committed to protecting the confidentiality and security of our patients’ information and we regret to inform you of an incident involving some of that information. Sometime between February 10, 2016 and May 7, 2017, some…
Montana State University Billings notifying students after laptop was stolen in November
Ugh. Another laptop was apparently stolen from an employee’s car. This one was from the education sector, but it contained some student health information and health insurance information. The incident was reported by Montana State University Billings to the Montana Attorney General’s Office on January 5, and letters are going out today to affected students….