Yesterday, the North Carolina Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS) disclosed that a flash drive with information on over 50,000 medical providers who are excluded from participating in federal healthcare programs had been misplaced or lost by its contractor, Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC). The provider information included names, addresses, dates of birth, and Social…
Category: Subcontractor
Shades of 2003: Have contractors started holding individuals’ PII hostage again?
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen any report that a contractor or their employees were holding an organization’s client or patient data hostage as part of a dispute. To my surprise, however, there have been two such reports like that recently. One case is in the healthcare sector and I’ll be blogging about…
And yet another contractor breach
Workers United attorneys have notified the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office that an unnamed contractor had notified WU on October 25th that a hard drive containing some retirees’ names and Social Security numbers had been stolen from their office on October 13th or 14th. Notification letters were mailed to those affected on or after November…
Secret Service under investigation over loss of sensitive files on Metro
Jana Winter of Fox News reports that the Secret Service – the agency that is often involved in investigations of data breaches – had its own breach back in 2008 that is now (finally?) under investigation: The Secret Service is the target of an investigation into an “immense breach” involving the loss of two backup computer…
IE: Investigation into possible data breach at 02
Irish mobile phone carrier O2 may have had a breach involving customer data. Or not. It seems they’re not really sure what was on a missing backup tape. And I’m not sure I understand why they first told this summer that a tape went missing in September 2011. And of course I’m not sure I…
FTC Finalizes Settlements with Two Businesses that Exposed Consumers Sensitive Information Over P2P Networks
From the FTC, a follow-up to a previously-reported action: Following a public comment period, the Federal Trade Commission has accepted as final settlements with two operations it charged with illegally exposing the sensitive personal information of thousands of consumers by allowing peer-to-peer file-sharing software to be installed on their corporate computer systems. Settlements with Utah-based debt…