Julie Creswell and Nicole Perlroth report: The risks were clear to computer experts inside Home Depot: The home improvement chain, they warned for years, might be easy prey for hackers. But despite alarms as far back as 2008, Home Depot was slow to raise its defenses, according to former employees. Read more on NY Times….
California Supreme Court to Hear Privacy Challenge to Prescription Database Statute
Kenneth Ofgang reports: The California Supreme Court has agreed to determine whether healthcare regulators violated the state Constitution’s privacy clause when they accessed a local doctor’s prescribing records as part of an investigation into claims of unprofessional conduct. The justices, at their weekly conference in San Francisco Wednesday, voted 5-0 to review the ruling of…
FL: Tax refund fraud scheme involved two insiders misusing databases
WTXL reports that five people have been indicted in a tax refund fraud scheme that included two employees misusing their access to databases. One of those indicted, Katrina Pratt, had been an administrative assistant in human resources at Florida A & M University (FAMU), and allegedly used the identities of 40 students there as part…
Top official fired for records security breach at St. Louis Recorder of Deeds office
Adam McDonald reports: A top official in the St. Louis Recorder of Deeds Office has been fired for a vital records security breach of about 19,000 unauthorized copies of death certificates. The acting Recorder of Deeds, Jennifer Florida, says Preggy Meeker, the alleged suspect, allowed employees to log into Missouri’s vital records system by using…
Oh, so that's what happened?
One of the (all too many) frustrations with trying to learn from HHS’s public breach tool is that they do not let us know when they’ve updated an older entry or closed an investigation. In December of 2012, I had reported three additions to the breach tool for which I could find no information online….
SC: Jury begins mulling charges against Williamsburg County sheriff in novel fraud scheme (UPDATED with verdicts)
John Monk reports: A federal jury on Friday afternoon began deliberating the case in which the suspended Williamsburg County sheriff and a Columbia businessman were charged with fraud in connection with a scheme involving hundreds of alleged false identity theft reports. Earlier Friday, the jury heard lawyers’ closing arguments that offered sharp contrasts of Michael…