Gotta watch those vendors – even the well-intentioned ones. Robert Weisman provides an update on an incident mentioned previously on this blog: St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center said Friday it is notifying 6,831 patients that their billing information, including credit card numbers and security codes, may have been compromised when documents the hospital planned to shred…
Category: Health Data
Utah Department of Health hacked
Ugh. Tons of data acquired by hackers, including 25,000 Social Security numbers. All told, they’re now reporting that almost 182,000 people (including children) had their PHI stolen. See today’s story in the Salt Lake Tribune.
Sensitive personal information on 800,000 California residents lost between IBM and state office
Steven Harmon reports: In a puzzling breach of security, computer storage devices containing identification information of 800,000 Californians using the state’s child support services have gone missing. The Department of Child Support Service reported on Thursday the data devices were lost March 12 en route to California from the Colorado facilities of IBM, one of…
Howard University Hospital Notifies Over 34,000 Patients of Laptop Theft
*sigh* Howard University Hospital this week sent notification to patients of a potential disclosure of their protected health information in late January. A former contractor’s personal laptop containing patient information was stolen, according to a statement by the hospital. The laptop, taken from the former contractor’s vehicle, was password protected. […] The hospital has sent…
How to ensure a lost mobile device won’t cause a data breach
ID Experts points us to a post by Pamela Lewis Dolan: Physicians who own mobile devices should make the following assumption: If they lose a smartphone or tablet, someone is going to try to see what’s on it. With an estimated 80% of physicians using a mobile device on the job, a lot of patient…
Abortion records found in Kansas City metro recycling bin (updated)
A very disturbing breach in Kansas reported by the Kansas City Star: An Overland Park, Kan., woman made a disturbing discovery Saturday as she dumped her recycling inside a yellow and green bin in front of Brookridge Elementary School: More than 1,000 private abortion records sat in plain view, dumped on top of magazines and…