Dana Flavelle reports that private investigators hired by an association of secure document disposal companies found lots of personal information in dumpsters in the Greater Toronto area. Doctors offices and car dealers got an unwanted shout-out in their findings. Most organizations, especially large banks and hospitals, are doing a good job of disposing of sensitive…
Category: Exposure
CT: U. Conn addresses security breach
Amy McDavitt reports: A recent security breach on the Storrs campus revealed a list of former students’ names and Social Security numbers and made them available on the Internet. The university was made aware of the situation Oct. 4 after one of the individuals on the list discovered it and alerted university officials, according to…
AU: Telstra botched mail-out exposes 220,000 customers
Asher Moses reports: Telstra is being investigated by both the communications and privacy watchdogs after it sent out 220,000 letters that contained account information belonging to other customers. The letters, which contained the name, phone number and telephone plan of customers other than the recipients, explained upcoming fixed line price changes. Telstra blamed the privacy…
TX: Sensitive documents found in a dumpster
Nadia Ramdass reports from KENS 5 in San Antonio about the discovery of documents in a dumpster at Creston Ridge: Materials found in the dumpster included applications filled out by those looking to lease a home on the property dating back to 2008. In addition, forms contained social security numbers, drivers license numbers, birth dates,…
UK: Darwen firm’s customer data posted online
Catherine Pye reports: Crown Paints could be fined for data breaches after publishing personal details of hundreds of customers online. Enquiries and complaints entered this year on Crown’s Decorating Centre website, featuring home addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses were made public after an internet hitch on Friday morning. The Darwen-based company is now being…
Johns Hopkins University e-mail attachment error exposed personal info
Johns Hopkins University has notified the U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services of a breach involving 692 of its Applied Physics Laboratory employees’ dependents. Because HHS’s breach logs don’t provide a lot of detail, I contacted JHU for additional information on the incident. As I have come to expect from them, they promptly responded with…