Martin Evans reports: The Army cannot account for files containing personal data from a regional reserve command based at Fort Totten and is warning some 12,000 area military and civilian personnel they may be vulnerable to identity theft. The records cover reservists from Long Island, New York City and upstate who were assigned to the…
Category: U.S.
Up to 1.2M Tax Returns May Have Used Stolen IDs
An estimated 1.2 million tax returns filed in 2007 reported wages earned by taxpayers who used another taxpayer’s Social Security number, according to a new government report. Many tax returns are filed by individuals who have used another person’s name and Social Security number at work, but then filed federal tax returns using their own…
NY: Patient files found dumped in Monticello
Leonard Sparks reports: Officials have seized hundreds, perhaps thousands, of files containing Social Security numbers and other private patient information found dumped outside the shuttered office of DRC Physical Therapy Plus. The manila folders, dating back to at least 1998, include information sheets showing the names, addresses and birth dates of patients and, in some…
Professor emails private student records by accident
Mike LaCount reports: On April 8, students in the UW-Milwaukee Geography department received an e-mail containing personal information of former UWM students, but the message was removed before most of the recipients opened it. Judith Kenny, associate professor and undergraduate program chair for the department of geography, sent an e-mail to 97 students in the…
Data Redaction: You’re Doing it Wrong
John Bambenek writes: PDF files are a common way to distribute documents on the Internet and even are used for distributing documents with redacted (removed) content. However, when you distribute redacted documents make sure that the data you don’t want out there isn’t, in fact, still in the file. Case in point, take the upcoming…
IN: Local debit cards affected in breach
One to watch…. Lafayette police say a national debit card security breach is hitting close to home. According to police, this compromise has affected customers from a string of local restaurants and other businesses. And it’s hit several of the area’s banks and credit unions. “I have spoken with a lot of the local financial…