The Catoosa County News provides a follow-up on a case I had reported here: The family member of the doctor whose sensitive medical records were found in a dumpster in Hixon, Tenn., two weeks ago will not be charged with any crime. According to Jerri Weary, public information officer with the Chattanooga Police Department: The…
Category: U.S.
OIS Commentary: Is this really necessary?
Capstone Dental Center, PC (dba Arnerident Dental Associates) recently notified (pdf) the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office that an email address for one doctor was typed incorrectly. As a result, attachments containing unencrypted dental information and the Social Security number of one patient were sent to the email address of a dairy farmer located in…
MI: Credit-card thefts blamed for Spicy Pickle closings
This follow-up to a breach originally reported on PogoWasRight.org last year demonstrates how what might appear to be less than catastrophic data breaches can wipe out a small or medium-sized business. William R. Wood reports on MLive.com: The area’s two Spicy Pickle restaurants closed Monday, their owner saying that they were victims of the fallout…
NV: Data leak raises questions
The Rebel Yell reports that letters were sent to about 20 students at University of Nevada – Las Vegas College of Sciences after the college discovered a virus had affected one of its computers. The college reportedly found that no data had been leaked. The story does not indicate what types of personal information were…
Nigerian national sentenced for mail fraud and ID theft
Rasheed Babatunde Kayode of Houston was sentenced to 235 months in federal prison following convictions for mail fraud, aggravated identity theft and fraud in the procurement of naturalized U.S. citizenship. On May 12, 2008, U.S. Postal Inspectors discovered numerous items and documents in his home: A large amount of additional credit cards still inside their…
Did a privacy activist’s web site facilitate fraud?
Betty Ostergren of The Virginia Watchdog has been a passionate advocate for eliminating Social Security numbers from documents posted on the web by government agencies. To that end, she has occasionally posted examples of what she has found on publicly available web sites, a tactic that I have questioned while admiring her dedication and determination….