Patrick O’Grady reports: LifeLock Inc. and Experian Information Solutions Inc. have settled their lawsuit, and the agreement permanently blocks the original process LifeLock used to protect its clients. The settlement, submitted to U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Guilford earlier this week, was sealed except for the portions about the identity theft protection company being banned…
Category: Of Note
House bill excludes some businesses from Red Flag Rules
The House of Representatives passed H.R. 3763, a bill that amends the Fair Credit Reporting Act to provide for an exclusion from Red Flag Guidelines for certain businesses. As passed by the House, the following would not be considered “creditors” under the new Red Flag Rules: a health care practice with 20 or fewer employees…
UPDATE: Zurich data loss affects 641,000
Leo King reports: Insurance giant Zurich has lost the sensitive personal account details of 641,000 customers held on backup tape. The company admitted the tape had been missing for over a year in South Africa, after it was lost en route to a secure storage unit in August 2008. But it has only just noticed…
Consumer Watchdog Asks HHS to Repeal Rule Allowing Health Care Providers to Decide When Notification of Breached Electronic Medical Records is Necessary
Consumer Watchdog today called on the Health and Human Services Department to repeal a rule that allows health care providers and insurers to decide whether consumers must be notified when the security of their electronic confidential health information has been breached. In a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius the nonprofit, nonpartisan consumer advocacy group…
EXCLUSIVE: UW-Madison discovers 40 computers used for file-sharing
A site reader alerted DataBreaches.net to a recent breach involving the Department of Chemistry at University of Wisconsin-Madison recently. According to the notification letter, a copy of which was provided to this site, the university notified some faculty and students that their personal information was on 40 departmental computers that had been hacked. In a…
Gaping security hole turned 64,000 Time Warner cable modems into hacker prey
Tim Greene reports: A blogger helping to tune a friend’s wi-fi network uncovered a gaping security hole in Wi-Fi cable modem routers installed in 64,000 Time Warner subscribers’ homes, leaving them open to attack. Time Warner says that within the past week it has patched the problem until the manufacturer can provide a permanent fix,…