Aliya Sternstein reports: Reports of network security incidents at federal agencies have soared 650 percent during the past half-decade, jeopardizing the confidentiality and integrity of sensitive government information, federal auditors charged in a congressionally mandated report. The most prevalent types of cyber events included infections from malicious code — 30 percent of incidents; violations of…
Supreme Court refuses to hear case on medical records consent
Warren Richey reports: The US Supreme Court on Monday turned aside an appeal involving the scope of privacy protections for a patient’s medical records when a state agency seeks to force a doctor to disclose those records without first obtaining a patient’s consent. At issue was a Maryland law that empowers an oversight board to…
Russians’ personal data posted online
From Komsomolskaya Pravda: The scandal erupted on October 1, when a group of users registered three sites – rusleaks.com, rusleaks.net and rusleaks.org – which give free access to Russians’ personal information, including passport data, mobile phone numbers and traffic police records. The project’s authors claim corruption can be defeated “only in conditions of close public…
CO: Sensitive Patient Records Found Scattered At Shopping Center
Don Champion reports: An Aurora street sweeper found hundreds of sensitive dental patient records scattered near a Dumpster behind an Aurora shopping center on Saturday. The billings records contained patients’ Social Security numbers, birth dates, names and addresses — information that could be abused by identity thieves. […] The documents trace back to Dentistry at…
UK: NHS trust lost 800 patient records on unencrypted memory stick
An NHS trust has done it again – losing 800 confidential patient records on an unencrypted memory stick. The Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust patient records were lost in September 2010. Shockingly, the details were on an unencrypted memory stick and worse, the 800 affected patients were never told. Leaked details include full name, date…
An attempt to protect privacy devolves into a scene
Maintaining patient privacy is always an issue in hospitals. In emergency rooms, it may become even more challenging. Last week, my mother was taken by ambulance to an emergency room. To protect her privacy, I won’t say why other than she definitely needed emergency medical care and was in danger of not one, but two,…