It was ultimately a case of calling the wrong phone number, but due to a combination of factors, the error wasn’t realized until after some patient information had been revealed. VOCM reports: Eastern Health is investigating after VOCM Backtalk host Pete Soucy found himself in a recent comedy of errors that resulted in a privacy…
Category: Health Data
First HIPAA enforcement action for lack of timely breach notification settles for $475,000
OCR has announced a settlement involving a breach that I never even reported on this site at the time and that doesn’t appear to have been in the news at the time. A quick look at HHS’s “Wall of Shame” shows two entries for the incident at issue: one entry says it was reported on…
VA: Former Nurse Sentenced for ID Theft and Bank Fraud
There’s an update to a case previously noted on this site. Capri M. Williams, 26, of Richmond, was sentenced today to three years in prison for identity theft and bank fraud crimes related to her stealing personal identifying information (PII) of hundreds of patients while employed at Commonwealth Primary Care (CPC), Inc., in Richmond. Williams…
Misconfigured MongoDB database exposes sleep disorder program patients’ information
I blacked out while driving and wrecked …. So begins a message that was just one of more than 1,000 messages and more than 1,200 patient profiles exposed to the world because a sleep disorder clinic serving military personnel had a misconfigured MongoDB database that was indexed by Shodan. Thankfully, the files were still intact when MacKeeper Security Research…
Emory Healthcare patient data hijacked and held for ransom? (UPDATED)
Yesterday, I noted a somewhat alarming report that misconfigured MongoDB installations are being wiped by a hacker who steals the databases and then holds them for ransom of .2 BTC (approximately $200 at yesterday’s rate or $220 at today’s rate). This latest threat was reported yesterday by Catalin Cimpanu of Bleeping Computer after an ethical hacker, Victor Gevers, disclosed the discovery he had made as part of Project 366. On…
NH DHHS commissioner apologizes to families receiving breach notifications for deceased relatives
AP reports that New Hampshire’s health commissioner is offering an extra apology as his agency deals with a data breach that led to personal information of up to 15,000 people being posted online. The extra apology follows recent media coverage describing the emotional reaction of a woman who received a letter addressed to her son…