Eric Chabrow reports: The Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday approved two companion bills that would require businesses and government agencies to notify individuals of security breaches involving sensitive personally identifiable information. Both bills go to the Senate for consideration. The Personal Data Privacy and Security Act, or S. 1490, designates as fraud unauthorized access of sensitive…
Category: Of Note
Facebook and MySpace Flash Vulnerability Exposes User Data
Jason Kincaid writes: A Facebook developer named Yvo Schaap has uncovered a massive security flaw present on both Facebook and MySpace that would give hackers the ability to steal all of your account data, including your photos, personal messages, and basically everything else you’ve ever put on the social networks, without you ever realizing it….
Judge spanks lawyer for leaking personal details in brief
Dan Goodin reports: A judge has chastised a lawyer for including the social security numbers and birthdays of 179 individuals in an electronic court brief, ordering him to pay a $5,000 sanction and provide credit monitoring. US District Judge Michael J. Davis said he was meting out the penalty under his “inherent power,” meaning no…
EU: Telcos’ data breach notification amendment is passed
From Out-Law.com: The European Council has approved a data breach notification rule for Europe’s telecoms firms. The amendment to an EU Directive will force telcos to tell customers if they lose their data. The European Parliament and Commission have already approved the amendments, which will become law after it has been published in the EU’s…
Military lags in safeguarding officers’ identities
Charlie Reed of Stars and Stripes reports on the military’s progress – or lack thereof – in addressing an August 2008 report by PublicResources.org that revealed that hundreds of thousands military officers’ Social Security numbers were publicly available in government and commercial databases, including the Congressional Record, W.S. Hein, LexisNexis, and Westlaw. It seems that…
Palmetto General Hospital employee and accomplice sentenced for stealing patient records
Jacquettia L. Brown, 29, and Tear Renee Barbary, 25, both residents of Miami-Dade County, were both sentenced this week following their conviction on offenses relating to the theft of patient records from Palmetto General Hospital to further a fraud scheme. U.S. District Court Judge K. Michael Moore sentenced Brown to two years and five days…