Robert Pear of the NY Times reports: Social Security officials, concerned about the risk of identity theft, are calling for immediate action to remove Social Security numbers from the Medicare cards used by millions of Americans. But Medicare officials have resisted the proposal, saying it would be costly and impractical. […] Read the full story…
Category: Health Data
Boston Medical Center settles charge of deceptive marketing
Boston Medical Center HealthNet and Boston Medical Center Corporation have agreed to pay the state $562,000 to settle charges that BMC gave private patient information to its HealthNet insurance plan for marketing purposes that the state described as deceptive. According to WBUR, BMC sent a letter to 2,600 patients who were insured by competing plans. …
Patients’ attitudes to the summary care record: Security concerns must be put in context
From the British Medical Journal: Patients’ attitudes to the summary care record: Security concerns must be put in context J.E.F. Fitzgerald, A. Nikkar-Esfahani, A.A.B. Jamjoom, K.K. Shah, A.G. Acheson (16 June 2008) […] Human links in the patient record chain are far more vulnerable to error, and we have been alarmed at the ease…
More on the Finjan study
Earlier today, I posted a link to a troubling Finjan study that found that crimeware was hitting major health-related organizations.  In his news report on the study, Jaikumar Vijayan of Computerworld writes, in part: One trend Finjan has noted is an increased focus on trying to steal login credentials for Citrix applications. Technologies from Citirx…
UK: Latest security blunder sees patients personal information stolen from a hospital (update1)
The Mail Online is reporting: Police are investigating the theft of laptop computers containing personal information on several thousand patients from a London hospital. Thieves broke into locked cabinets in secure offices at St George’s Hospital in London, which were accessible only by a swipe card and key-locked door. Six computers were taken –…
Finjan Discovers more than 500 Mb of Stolen Medical, Business and Airline Data on Crimeware Servers in Argentina and Malaysia
Finjan Inc. has issued a press release and report [pdf, free subscription required]. While coming as no surprise, their findings should alarm us all. From the press release: Finjan Inc., a leader in secure web gateway products, today announced its discovery of a server controlled by hackers (Crimeserver) containing more than 500Mb of premium…