Julie M. Donnelly reports: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts has disclosed that a contracted vendor compromised an employee’s data at the state’s largest health insurer. The health plan said its cyber-security systems were not breached, no medical information was involved,and no health plan members’ personal information was compromised. The health plan issued a statement…
2 charged with stealing credit card info at Helena eatery
Melissa Anderson reports: Two men have been charged with several counts of deceptive practices after allegedly stealing credit card numbers from restaurant patrons. Liang Wang, 29, and Ke Xu, 25, appeared in Helena Justice Court on Wednesday on six felony counts each. An interpreter from Hong Kong translated the charges since neither of the suspects…
Medical Data Breach Highlights Need For Encryption
Michelle McNickle reports: The recent data breach at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary (MEEI) and Massachusetts Eye and Ear Associates once again screams the message: Encryption, encryption, encryption!The provider has agreed to pay a $1.5 million fine to theDepartment of Health and Human Services (HHS), after allegations were made that Mass. Eye and Ear failed to…
Study reveals teenage patients' attitude towards social media and privacy
A study of how chronically ill teenagers manage their privacy found that teen patients spend a great deal of time online and guard their privacy very consciously. “Not all my friends need to know”: a qualitative study of teenage patients, privacy and social media, was published this summer in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics…
An Alert System for Security Breaches
Nicole Perlroth reports that there are now some services that will alert you if your login credentials or information shows up in data dump from a hack: LastPass, a service for managing passwords, said on Tuesday that it had partnered with PwnedList, a database of leaked usernames and passwords, to alert customers if a Web site…
Fourteen Defendants Charged In $65 Million Stolen Identity Income Tax Refund Fraud Scheme
One of the nation’s largest and longest running stolen identity tax refund fraud schemes – involving more than 8,000 fraudulent U.S. income tax returns seeking $65 million in illicit refunds – has been shut down by a New Jersey-based task force, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced. Fourteen people are charged in five Criminal Complaints…