AP reports: Montana health officials have fired two employees for providing the Social Security numbers and other personal information of 185 childcare providers to three state legislators. The Associated Press obtained copies of letters mailed to the Republican lawmakers from Department of Public Health and Human Services director Richard Opper asking them to destroy the…
Category: U.S.
New HHS guidance on Ransomware and HIPAA
I hate it when I tweet something but forget to post it. In today’s installment of “Smacking Myself in the Forehead,” I remember to tell readers that HHS has issued a new guidance on ransomware and HIPAA. A recent U.S. Government interagency report indicates that, on average, there have been 4,000 daily ransomware attacks since…
Chinese businessman gets nearly 4 years in prison for US hacking case
Updating a case originally reported in March. Steven Musil reports: A Chinese businessman has been sentenced to nearly four years in prison for conspiring to hack the computer systems of Boeing and other US defense contractors to steal military technical data. Su Bin, a Chinese national and the owner of a Chinese aviation technology company, was sentenced…
US govt bank insurer ‘covered up China hack to protect top boss’
Shaun Nichols reports: The US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation – a government agency tasked with safeguarding citizens’ bank accounts – deliberately covered up a cyberattack by China to protect its incoming chairman. This is according to a damning report from Republican members of the US House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, who slammed the bank…
Maryland federal judge says possible future injuries not enough in data breach class action
Jessica Karmasek reports: A Maryland federal court, joining a handful of other federal courts, recently dismissed a data breach class action for lack of standing. Judge Richard Bennett for the U.S. District Court for the District Court of Maryland nixed the putative class action brought against CareFirst Inc. and CareFirst of Maryland Inc. The plaintiffs,…
Kaiser Permanente notifies patients after stolen ultrasound machines were recovered
Kaiser Permanente of Northern California is notifying patients after discover of an insider theft. In a letter template uploaded to the California Attorney General’s web site today, Angela Anderson, KP’s Regional Privacy and Security Officer, writes that on June 10, they learned that a number of ultrasound machines had been stolen by two KP employees. The machines were…