Maybe one of the mantras of data protection should be “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” In 2009, Yankees fans enthusiastically threw papers out of the window during the team’s World Series celebratory parade through the Canyon of Heroes. The unshredded papers included files from A.L. Sarroff, Goldman Sachs, and the Bronx Supreme Court, as well as medical test…
Category: Exposure
UK: Plymouth City Council fined £60,000 for sending child neglect report to wrong person
I’m guessing that Plymouth City Council isn’t giving thanks today – the Information Commissioner’s Office smacked them with a fine of £60,000 for a data protection breach that occurred in November 2011 when the details of a child neglect case were sent to the wrong recipient. The breach occurred when two social workers used a shared printer…
Jail Looms for Man Who Revealed AT&T Leaked iPad User E-Mails (updated)
Tom Simonite reports: AT&T screwed up in 2010, serving up the e-mail addresses of over 110,000 of its iPad 3G customers online for anyone to find. But today Andrew Auernheimer, an online activist who pointed out AT&T’s blunder to Gawker Media, which went on to publicize the breach of private information, is the one in federal…
Security breach after photos of Prince William shared online
TVNZ reports: Photographs showing a day in the life of Prince William posted online by St James’ s Palace have caused an embarrassing security blunder for the Ministry of Defence in the United Kingdom. The ministry was yesterday forced to reset the user names and computer passwords of dozens of Royal Air Force staff after…
Oops! Taliban Reveal Identities of Their Mailing List Members
There are e-mail gaffes and then there are e-mail gaffes. Muhammed Lila reports that a Taliban spokesperson exposed more than 400 recipients on a Taliban e-mail list: The names were disclosed in an email by Qari Yousuf Ahmedi, an official Taliban spokesperson, on Saturday. The email was a press release he received from the account…
Chicago election site exposed personal information
John Byrne and Hal Dardick report: Chicago election board officials confirmed Tuesday that sensitive personal information for about 1,200 people was exposed online but denied allegations by a computer security firm that the breach was much broader. The firm, Forensicon, announced it uncovered the problem while researching voting patterns. It alleged that personal information of…