Jared Newman reports: AOL is asking users to reset their passwords as it investigates a recent flurry of spam e-mails. According to Reuters, the uptick in AOL spam is related to a security breach that affected roughly 2 percent of users. Hackers made off with e-mail addresses, mailing addresses, encrypted passwords, and encrypted security questions. AOL…
Hacked Iowa State University Server Used by State Schools
Mike Anderson of McClatchy reports: The brand of servers targeted in an online security breach at Iowa State University is vulnerable to hacking attacks and is used by all three of Iowa’s state universities. ISU has 10 servers manufactured by Taiwanese hardware company Synology, five of which were subject to the attack disclosed Tuesday. The…
Do medical scribes threaten patient privacy?
Joel Sherman, M.D. writes: Medical scribes are a burgeoning field with many institutions and practices exploring their use while the many commercial enterprises who lease out scribes are pushing for their widespread acceptance. There is no accepted definition of what scribes do or what their background or training should be. There is no mechanism for…
Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council signs undertaking after case file left at client’s home
An undertaking to comply with the seventh data protection principle has been signed (pdf) by Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council. This follows an investigation into a social worker leaving a case file containing sensitive personal data at a client’s home. According to the undertaking, the Information Commissioner’s Office was informed of the breach in March 2013. After…
Former JHU grad students’ personal data exposed online
Pamela reports: More than 2,000 Social Security numbers of former Johns Hopkins University graduate students were exposed to potential hackers, the university confirmed Saturday. Hopkins officials discovered on March 19 that the names and Social Security numbers of 2,166 former students were stored on a server that was accessible to the Internet, said Dennis O’Shea, a university…
More Doctors Hit by Fraud
Jordan Cuddemi reports: Another two dozen physicians and other medical personnel in the Twin States have had their Social Security numbers stolen and then used to file fraudulent federal tax returns, bringing the total number of victims to more than 180, according to medical society officials in Vermont and New Hampshire. What remains unclear, however,…