A man who lead an identity-theft ring that ran up a quarter-million dollars worth of charges from inside a federal prison – and who continued the criminal activity even after pleading guilty to the charges – as sentenced to more than 14 years in prison, Steven M. Dettelbach, United States Attorney for the Northern District…
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UK: First monetary penalties served for serious data protection breaches
The Information Commissioner today served two organizations with the first monetary penalties for what he characterized as serious breaches of the Data Protection Act. The first penalty, of £100,000, was issued to Hertfordshire County Council for two serious incidents where council employees faxed highly sensitive personal information to the wrong recipients. The first case, involving…
Update: ALDI breach potentially affects 8,000 in Maryland alone
Although ALDI has repeatedly said that the tampering of pin pads affected only a “limited number of stores” in their 1000+store chain, the number of customers affected continues to grow as new reports emerge. In a report to the Maryland Attorney General’s Office dated October 1, Terry E. Pfortmiller, ALDI Vice-President of Finance and Administration,…
Hacked D.C. online voting system stored login and encryption key on server
Kim Zetter writes: An internet-based voting system that was hacked last week by researchers at the University of Michigan stored its database username, password and encryption key on a server open to attack. Alex Halderman, a computer scientist at the university, has detailed the vulnerabilities and hacking techniques his students used to completely control the system…
FL: People’s Personal Information Up for Bid at Hospital Auction
Chad Mira reports: An auction at the Gulf Pines Hospital in Port St. Joe has former employees worried about a HIPAA law violation and possibly even identity theft. One past employee says old files were still in the hospital, and people could have walked away with them after the auction last week. Employees are frustrated…
Wire-transfer fraud poses a growing problem
Doreen Hemlock filed this report last week: Identity theft takes many forms, but Lenny Vigliotti never imagined it would show up as somebody wiring $12,000 from his South Florida saving account through multiple banks to end up in the Ukraine. Nearly three months after he noticed the money missing, he’s yet to recoup the cash….