Ouch. Howard Solomon reports: Mistakes can happen in any organization, but when the office of the federal privacy commissioner loses an unencrypted hard drive with personal information it must sting. But that’s what happened on Feb 14 during the agency’s move to Gatineau, Que. from its home across the river in Ottawa. The Toronto Star revealed the…
Category: Lost or Missing
Wolf & Company reports drive with personal information lost in the mail
Oh dear. Not realizing that a USB drive contained any personal information, an employee of Boston-based Wolf & Company mailed the drive back to their bookkeeper on March 11. Unfortunately, the envelope was damaged in mailing and the drive, which contained names and Social Security numbers in a QuikBook file, never arrived. No foul play is…
Data security breach hits Portland-area employees of PCC Structurals (updated)
Richard Reed reports: Sometime between Dec. 30 and Jan. 10, an unidentified person left documents in a Portland-area restaurant that included confidential information about PCC Structurals Inc. employees. The security breach was low-tech, unlike the recent data disaster at Target Corp., in which hackers stole credit-card and other personal information for as many as 110 million customers. But…
Connecticut Appellate Court affirms denial of coverage under CGL policy for data breach
Michael A. Hamilton and Christopher J. DiIenno of Nelson Levine de Luca & Hamilton LLC discuss a case that pre-dates this blog but litigation over the insurer’s obligations has only recently resulted in an appellate ruling: As more data breaches and information security events occur, the insurance industry will see more disputes over whether losses…
Huntington’s Disease Society of America suffers second security incident in six months
This has not been a good year for the Huntington’s Disease Society of America (HDSA). In August, I reported that an executive’s e-mail accounts was compromised, and although the attacker’s attempt at a fraudulent wire transfer was thwarted, personal information of board members, donors and vendors might have been accessed. Now HSDA has reported another breach,…
18,800 Colorado State Workers Wrapped Up In Data Breach
Jeanne Price reports: Nearly 19,000 Colorado state workers—both current and former—could have identity protection concerns after a state worker lost a USB or thumb drive containing their personal data including Social Security Numbers (SSN). “A state employee lost the drive while transporting it between work locations. There is no indication that this information has been…