Vinay Pidathala, Hitesh Dharmdasani, Jinjian Zhai and Zheng Bu write: FireEye has uncovered and helped weaken one of the largest advanced mobile botnets to date. The botnet, which we are dubbing “MisoSMS,” has been used in at least 64 spyware campaigns, stealing text messages and emailing them to cybercriminals in China. MisoSMS infects Android systems…
There are lessons to be learned from the Maricopa County Community Colleges breach. Learn them, dammit.
I generally do not write “lessons learned from [X breach] ” posts, because I seriously doubt people have really learned anything. Instead of headlines like “Lessons learned from…,” what we should be writing is, “If you don’t learn from this, then you’re an idiot and should never be allowed near consumers’ personal information.” In any…
iPharmacy app gets negative review from Appthority (updated to reflect problems addressed)
Update of February 2014: The developers took the negative review seriously and fixed the problems, appthority reports, here. Original post: Appthority has posted its review of iPharmacy Drug Guide and Pill ID, which they note has been downloaded over 1,000,000 times from Google Play. From their review: Appthority Trust Score: 60 (out of 100 possible)/policy enforced…
Calgary pharmacist used private health information to hit on patient: report
The Canadian Press reports: Alberta’s privacy commissioner has sharp words for a pharmacist who used a patient’s information to try to build a relationship with her on Facebook. Commissioner Jill Clayton says the Calgary pharmacist misused health information for personal purposes when he called the woman twice in 2012 after she filled prescriptions with him,…
Vermont health official reports 2nd breach involving state health insurance exchange
Associated Press reports: The state official overseeing Vermont’s new online insurance marketplace says there has been a second “privacy incident” after there was a mix-up of information involving two people with the same first and last names. Read more on Bennington Banner.
Assessing Bitcoin’s benefits, security risks in healthcare
Patrick Ouellette writes: Because of the prevalence of medical identity fraud in the healthcare industry, healthcare providers are beginning to think outside of the box as to how to keep their patients’ data private. San Francisco physician Paul Abramson has made headlines of late for allowing patients to pay for services using Bitcoin, a decentralized…