The following is the FTC’s press release. In the next post, I’ll publish HHS’s press release on their settlement with Rite Aid. Rite Aid Corporation has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it failed to protect the sensitive financial and medical information of its customers and employees, in violation of federal law. In…
Category: Of Note
Schools risk theft of SS numbers of children
Matthew Cella reports: Schools are putting children at risk of identity fraud by obtaining their Social Security numbers when it is not required by law and often unnecessary, the Social Security Administration’s Office of Inspector General has concluded. Some school systems in at least 26 states collect the nine-digit identifiers when students from kindergarten through…
University of Texas Arlington server containing medical records and SSN hacked
From UTA’s web site: The University of Texas at Arlington recently learned that one of its file servers had been compromised, which potentially exposed the prescription records of approximately 27,000 individuals to an unauthorized source. Federal and state authorities have been notified, including the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Texas Department of…
AU: Bolton loses his battle for Bottle
A costly consequence of security breaches. Ben Butler reports: Corporate raider Nicholas Bolton has lost his legal battle with internet domain-name regulator auDA over a security breach at his domain-name business. On Monday, auDa will take over about 10,000 customers who registered domain names through Mr Bolton’s company, Australian Style. The transfer can go ahead…
Colorado agency notifies 105,470 clients of stolen hard drive
The Colorado Department of Health Care Policy & Financing is notifying 105,470 clients receiving state-provided health insurance that a stolen hard drive contained some of their personal information. A statement on the agency’s web site does not provide much detail and simply says: State officials discovered that there was an unauthorized removal of a computer…
UK: MoD loses a staggering 340 laptop computers in TWO YEARS…and most of them were not encrypted
The Ministry of Defence has lost or had stolen 340 laptops worth more than £600,000 in the last two years, figures reveal today. A total of 593 CDs, DVDs and floppy disks, 215 USB memory sticks, 96 removable hard disk drives and 13 mobile phones have also disappeared from the department since the release of…