Felice J. Freyer reports: A clerk at the state-run Tewksbury Hospital inappropriately viewed the electronic medical records of 1,100 patients from 2003 to 2017, the Department of Public Health revealed Friday. The clerk, who no longer works at the hospital, had access to records as part of her job, but snooped into patient files she…
Category: U.S.
Over 5 million Social Security numbers exposed in Kansas breach: report
Morgan Chalfant reports: A breach of a Kansas Department of Commerce system exposed more than 5 million Social Security numbers to hackers, according to a report from a local news outlet. The Kansas News Service obtained information through a public records request that revealed that roughly 5.5 million Social Security numbers from individuals in 10 states were…
Vision Care Specialists, Inc., Notice of Data Breach
On May 22, 2017, Vision Care Specialists, Inc. (“VCS”) learned that on or about May 20, 2017 the VCS administrative office was burglarized. Immediately upon learning of the burglary, VCS contacted law enforcement who investigated the incident. VCS assessed the items that were stolen during the burglary, and determined that certain paper records containing patient…
U.S. Dept. Of Education Encourages Indiana To Improve Data Security
Claire McInerny reports: The U.S. Department of Education (USED) sent a letter to Superintendent Jennifer McCormick this month outlining problems with the Indiana Department of Education’s security around student data. The state receives grant money from USED for implementing security systems, which opened the state up to an audit. According to the USED letter, the audit’s “objective…
The Government Has Finally Stopped Publicizing Abuse Victims’ Personal Information
P.R. Lockhart reports: Almost two months after revelations that the government had posted personal information of undocumented victims of abuse in a publicly searchable database, US Customs and Immigration Enforcement says that it has corrected the issue. In May, Mother Jones reported that the names of undocumented abuse victims were searchable in the Department of Homeland Security’s…
Lucchese computer hacker sentenced to 18-months in federal prison
Andra Litton has the follow-up to a case previously noted on this site: A disgruntled ex-employee of Lucchese Boots was sentenced to 18-months in federal prison and ordered to pay $57,396.76 in restitution Wednesday after pleading guilty to one count of transmission of a program to cause damage to a computer. The computer breach happened…