Valerie K. Jackson of Jackson Lewis writes: October 2018 marks the 15th annual National Cyber Security Awareness Month. In honor of this occasion, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) have jointly launched an updated HIPAA Security Risk Assessment (SRA) Tool to help covered entities and…
Category: U.S.
Civil servant who watched porn at work blamed for infecting a US government network with malware
Zack Whittaker reports: A U.S. government network was infected with malware thanks to one employee’s “extensive history” of watching porn on his work computer, investigators have found. The audit, carried out by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s inspector general, found that a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) network at the EROS Center, a satellite imaging…
Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services notifies 10,400 whose data improperly retained by contractor
JEFFERSON CITY, MO – On October 24, 2018, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (“Department”) mailed over 10,400 letters to individuals informing them that the Department recently discovered a breach of security of their personal information. The breach occurred because, sometime before September 30, 2016, an information technology contractor for the State of…
TengoInternet breached in or prior to April; says prior breach investigation in April had revealed no credible evidence
It appears that Texas-based outdoor WiFi provider TengoInternet was notified anonymously in April 2018 of a hack, but their investigation at that time reportedly revealed no credible evidence. In September, however, when they were reportedly contacted again by the same anonymous individual, they had credible evidence. Was the anonymous party a whitehat researcher trying to…
Bully 4 U: Victims’, perpetrators’ names exposed in Western Albemarle data breach
Schilling Show reports: The results of an annual school survey administered by Western Albemarle High School (WAHS) were inadvertently exposed to the public in a serious breach of security and student privacy protocol. In a post-breach letter to parents, WAHS principal, Darah Bonham, explained that the school’s Peer Nomination Survey “asks students to identify peers…
Raley’s pharmacy patients notified after laptop with protected health information stolen
If you were or a pharmacy patient at Raley’s, Bel Air Mart, or Nob Hill General Store, your information may have been on a laptop that was stolen on September 24. In a notification to the California Attorney General, David Fluitt, Director of Pharmacy Operations for Raley’s, writes that the types of unencrypted information on…