J. David McSwane reports: Confidential medical records of more than 6,600 Medicaid patients in Texas were unintentionally made public for up to 8 years via the Internet by the Department of Aging and Disability Services. The agency, which is charged with assisting some of the state’s most vulnerable people, became aware of the breach in…
Category: Government Sector
Feds Looking Into Whether Hack of US Government Affected Private Citizens Too
Mike Levine reports: Federal investigators are trying to determine whether the massive hack into federal systems announced this past week impacted far more than the estimated 4 million current and former government employees already acknowledged by the Obama administration, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News. In particular, investigators are considering the possibility that…
IRS’s $130 million RFP to fix ID theft diverges from governmentwide initiative
Jared Serbu reports: The Internal Revenue Service has notified a relative handful of contractors that it plans to spend nearly $130 million to build its own new suite of identity verification services, an approach that appears to significantly diverge from an established governmentwide program to verify users’ identities. The agency issued a request for quotations…
Data hacked from U.S. government dates back to 1985: U.S. official
Andrea Shalal and Matt Spetalnick report: Data stolen from U.S. government computers by suspected Chinese hackers included security clearance information and background checks dating back three decades, U.S. officials said on Friday, underlining the scope of one of the largest known cyber attacks on federal networks. Of the four million federal employees whose data were…
VA: Portsmouth police officer indicted on computer invasion of privacy charges
Andrea Castillo reports: A Portsmouth police officer was indicted on computer invasion of privacy charges following a state police investigation. Melissa Moore, who has been with the department for three years, was indicted by a Portsmouth grand jury Thursday, according to a news release from Portsmouth Police Department spokeswoman Detective Misty Holley. Read more on…
China denies role in recent OPM security hack
Stuart Leavenworth reports: China on Friday rejected claims by unnamed U.S. officials that its agents hacked federal government computers, compromising the personal data of at least 4 million current and former federal employees. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei called the allegations “irresponsible” and urged U.S. officials to step up cooperation on stopping hacking, a problem…