I’ve often pointed out how breach notification letters to those affected may omit details that consumers might want to know but breached entities probably prefer we not know. I came across another example today. Let’s start with what happened, as described by attorneys for Vector Security to the Maryland Attorney General’s Office. Vector Security provides…
Category: U.S.
Alabama state employee sentenced for stealing info from state database for tax refund fraud scheme (updated)
An update to a case reported previously on this blog: Lea Tice Phillips, who had been employed by an unnamed Alabama state agency, was sentenced to 94 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $567,631 for her role in a tax refund fraud scheme. Phillips had pleaded guilty in May. Aha. Finally we know…
State Farm call center worker misused customers’ credit card information
Two days after a State Farm auto insurance customer made a payment on their insurance policy over the phone, the customer called State Farm back to report that their credit card information had been misused. State Farm investigated, and one month later, on September 4, the insurer notified the Maryland Attorney General’s Office that they…
One year after data theft, Primedia (RentPath) employees and applicants notified of breach
I could have sworn I had posted something about the Primedia (formerly RentPath) breach, but maybe I just tweeted it and forgot to blog it. Thankfully, Jeff Goldman of eSecurity Planet provided a preliminary media report in June. This blog post incorporates an update to the incident. Back in May, attorneys for Primedia notified at…
Audit of State University of New York at Albany reveals to-be-surplussed devices certified as “clean” still contained PII
I periodically post audits from the NYS Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s office pertaining to data protection. A recently released audit of SUNY-Albany reminds us that we need to continue to be concerned about inadequately wiped devices or drives that are to be surplussed. The audit period covered January – May 2012, and during that time, SUNY-Albany…
LabMD Responds to FTC Complaint: Claims Agency Lacks Enforcement Jurisdiction
Just received this press release from Cause of Action with LabMD’s response to FTC’s complaint: Cause of Action (CoA), a government accountability organization, filed an answer to an aggressive and arbitrary enforcement action brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against LabMD, a small cancer diagnosis company. CoA is defending LabMD against a complaint brought by the FTC in…