If there’s one thing I really hate to see, it’s reports of confidential records blowing in the wind or exposed because medical professionals or lawyers haven’t taken proper steps to securely dispose of them. Here’s another lawyer one, from WAFB: Below the interstate at Dalrymple and along the sidewalk, there are documents strewn about with…
Category: U.S.
TX: Tarleton State University officials investigate privacy breach
Micah Moore reports: Hundreds of Tarleton State University documents containing students’ personal information were scattered across the intersection of Washington and Lillian streets Tuesday afternoon breaching a federal law that is supposed to protect student records. The financial aid documents from 1997-98 contained the social security number, date of birth, federal PELL grant disbursements and…
IL: Court documents left in plain view
From the aw-c’mon-already-folks dept., Cynthia M. Ellis reports: Officials said they are changing how they dispose of public records after court documents were found in a recycling bin earlier this week behind the Madison County Wood River Facility. A Telegraph reporter received information Monday night about files found in an open bin behind the county…
OHSU says data about some patients and employees stolen in a home burglary
Crossposted from PHIprivacy.net: Oregon Health & Science University Hospital officials have posted a notice on their web site. While most of the notice concerns patient information, it appears that almost 200 employees had their Social Security Numbers on the stolen USB drive. OHSU has set up a toll free number to respond to patient questions. Information stored…
Dropbox Reports User Accounts Were Hijacked, Adds New Security Features
Rip Empson reports: Several weeks ago, reports started to trickle out that a number of Dropbox users were under attack from spam. Since then, Dropbox has been investigating those attacks (with some help from a third-party) and today gave the first update on the progress, saying that some accounts were indeed accessed by hackers, but…
Data breaches up 19 percent, GAO reports
Federal data breaches jumped 19 percent last year, the Government Accountability Office said Tuesday. There were roughly 13,000 incidents reported by agencies in 2010 involving unauthorized disclosures of personally identifiable information — last year, that figure shot up to 15,500, Greg Wilshusen, GAO’s director of information security issues, told the Senate subcommittee on government management…