Kelly Cohen reports: Better safeguards are needed to protect personal information managed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to an inspector general’s report. Even though the agency is required by federal law to have privacy protection procedures in place, EPA doesn’t, according to the report. Read more on Washington Examiner.
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
Minnesota data breach law demonstrates risks of knee-jerk reactions
I just shook my head yesterday when I heard about a proposed law in Minnesota that would require breach notification within 48 hours of discovery, the offer of free credit monitoring for one year, and golly gee, a $100 gift card that would be valid for one year if the breached entity was a retailer. Apparently I…
Comparison of Five Data-Breach Bills Currently Pending in the Senate
Meena Harris writes: Data security continues to be a hot issue on Capitol Hill, and just yesterday Attorney General Eric Holder urged Congress to create a “strong, national standard” for quickly reporting data breaches to consumers. Democratic and Republican senators have been busy drafting legislation that would establish national requirements for data security and breach notice. The following bills…
Payment Card Breaches: Time to Spread the Risk with Mandatory Cyber Insurance
David Navetta writes: The BIG 2014 security stories concerning the Target, Neiman Marcus and Michaels payment card breaches of have highlighted the significant criminal hacking and fraudulent payment card activity that goes on in the retail space. Of course, it was not so long ago that the Heartland Payment Systems breach (2008; 100 million cards exposed) and the TJX breach in (2007; 45 million card exposed)…
IRS Criminal Investigation issues annual report
The Internal Revenue Service today announced the release of its IRS Criminal Investigation (CI) Annual Report for fiscal year 2013, reflecting significant increases in enforcement actions against tax criminals and a robust rise in convictions, including identity theft. CI investigates potential criminal violations of the Internal Revenue Code and related financial crimes in a manner…
LifeLock addresses FTC complaint; more from CEO Todd Davis
Hayley Ringle reports: My hour-long interview last week with LifeLock CEO and chairman Todd Davis covered a lot of ground in the Phoenix Business Journal’s inaugural “Inside the Reporter’s Notebook” event. But there were some extra questions I didn’t get a chance to ask, including some about a pending FTC investigation I just learned about. Davis, who co-founded the Tempe-based identity theft protection company…