Hacking has topped human error as the top cause of reported data breaches for the first time since such tracking began in 2007, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center’s 2009 Breach Report. In its report, titled “Data Breaches: The Insanity Continues,” the non-profit ITRC found that 19.5 percent of reported breaches were due to…
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
Ie: Revenue set up VIP unit (but don’t the little people deserve privacy too?)
TJ McIntyre writes: One recent story which didn’t attract as much attention as it should have was the revelation that the Revenue have set up a special VIP unit to minimise leaks of confidential information about public figures. This emerged with the publication of an audit by the Data Protection Commissioner which found significant weaknesses…
Heartland breach shows why compliance is not enough
Jaikumar Vijayan reports: […] The [Heartland] intrusion led to the “stark realization that passing a PCI security audit does not make a company secure,” said Avivah Litan, an analyst at research firm Gartner Inc. “This was known well before the breach, but Heartland served as a big pail of ice water thrown on the face…
HHS wants contractor to test privacy of ‘anonymous’ data
Alice Lipowicz reports: Can personal medical data that has been stripped of its identifiers to protect privacy later be used to identify a specific person? That is the question that the Health and Human Services Department is hoping a research contractor can answer. HHS intends to hire a contractor to demonstrate either the “ability or…
Looking back on 2009
The breach of Heartland Payment Systems grabbed the headlines for much of the year and the entire population of Belize had their birth details stolen when a government employee left a laptop in a car, but what else went on? Your details, my friend, were blowing in the wind Although the number of breaches involving…
Cybercrooks stalk small businesses that bank online
Byron Acohido reports: A rising swarm of cyber-robberies targeting small firms, local governments, school districts, churches and non-profits has prompted an extraordinary warning. The American Bankers Association and the FBI are advising small and midsize businesses that conduct financial transactions over the Internet to dedicate a separate PC used exclusively for online banking. The reason:…